Brian Buys Tires & Wheels

Fri­day, Nov. 10 – I called the Tir­erack and ordered a set of Bridge­stone 195/50–15 RE71 tires mounted on Kosei Rac­ing Seneka wheels using my credit card. I was told that I’d get my order in 4–5 work­ing days.

Sat­ur­day, Nov. 11 – Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep (#1) called and left her name, Debby (I think that is what it was,) her exten­sion, and a mes­sage telling me my charge had been refused and please call back. Les­son #1 — A Debit Card is not the same as a Credit Card even though there is a Visa logo on the front. Usu­ally $300 is the biggest hit they’ll take. Called back and she said she under­stood the prob­lem and offered to break up my order into bank-bite sized bits.

Mon­day, Nov. 13 – Called the Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment and I spoke to a dif­fer­ent per­son (Rep #2, Penny?) She con­firmed that the charges had gone through the bank OK and that my order was approved. Restart the clock.

Thurs­day, Nov. 16 – Won­der where the tires & wheels are, I fig­ured that 4–5 work­ing days from Mon­day could be today. Called Cus­tomer Ser­vice to see if they would give me the UPS track­ing num­bers for my order so I could track their cross-country jour­ney. Was informed by Rep #3 (Cathy?) that their Mount­ing & Bal­anc­ing Depart­ment was way behind, but my order should ship today. She gave me some track­ing num­bers, but told me they wouldn’t be active until the order actu­ally shipped.

Fri­day, Nov. 17 – The UPS Web­site knows noth­ing of my num­bers. I’m get­ting ner­vous, had planned a trip for Thanks­giv­ing week­end and needed/wanted the new tires. Called Cus­tomer Ser­vice to find out is going on. Spoke to rep­re­sen­ta­tive #4 (Tammy? Does the name of every­one who works there end in Y?) and she told me the order should ship today. I asked if I could get a ship­ping upgrade so I could get my order by the next Tues­day. She said she’d try. Got my work num­ber and said she call before my quit­ting time, 4pm.

Just before quit­ting time and I still hadn’t heard from the Tir­erack. Called Cus­tomer Ser­vice and spoke to some­one else (#5, let’s call her Wendy.) Told her that I had spo­ken to some­one ear­lier whose name I couldn’t recall and that I think that now because of my sit­u­a­tion that I should just go ahead and can­cel my order and maybe get some new tires locally. She told me she was sorry about the prob­lem and she would can­cel the order if she could. She would call and let me know. I gave her my home phone num­ber. When I got back to my desk after wrap­ping up one last bit of work before the week­end I noticed I had a voice mail mes­sage on my phone.

It was from Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep #4, good to her word, call­ing me to let me know that she couldn’t get the upgrade because the order was already fin­ished and going to ship tonight.

Went out to eat and run some errands. Some­thing came up that changed the Thanks­giv­ing week­end plans, the trip was called off. Great, I’ve can­celled the tire and wheel order when I didn’t need to, or had I? Last word I got was they were going to ship. When I got home the mes­sage light was blink­ing on the answer­ing machine. It was Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep #5 call­ing to tell me she had suc­cess­fully man­aged to can­cel my order. Pulled it right off the truck. Drat her efficiency.

Sat­ur­day, Nov. 18 – By now I have the Tir­erack phone num­ber mem­o­rized, 1–888-541‑1777, so it flows from my fin­ger­tips to the phone key­pad. This time I get Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep #6. I tell her my tale of woe and ask if I could rein­state my order. She tells me that the com­puter shows that they shipped, so there should be no prob­lem. But that I should call back Mon­day because if they were actu­ally can­celled they would have to refund my money and then recharge my card. What a mess this is turn­ing out to be. She gives me her name, Grace (I write down Cindy) and her exten­sion num­ber. Les­son #2 – Get the Cus­tomer Ser­vice Person’s ‘cor­rect’ name and phone exten­sion the first time and then just deal with that one person.

Mon­day, Nov. 20 – Called “Cindy” at Cus­tomer Ser­vice and for­tu­nately I got her voice mail, it was informed that Grace was away from the phone or on the other line. I left her my work phone num­ber and asked her to call. Grace called me later that day and told me that the order had indeed been can­celled but she man­aged to catch the paper­work before it got too far. She told me because of that, they were able to keep the same charge on my account and use the same track­ing num­bers. She told me my tires & wheels would ship that day or tomor­row and with the hol­i­day I should get them early next week.

Sat­ur­day, Nov. 25 – I checked the UPS web­site at var­i­ous inter­vals dur­ing the hol­i­day week­end and every time I got the same results – Man­i­fest Pickup. That told me that the ship­ment had not yet left the Tir­erack ware­house. I called Cus­tomer Ser­vice and asked for Grace. She wasn’t work­ing that day, “Could some­one else help me?” Spoke to Rep #7 (Tracy? Or it could have been any one of the first 5 I spoke to.) She told me that per­haps UPS wasn’t updat­ing their web page or maybe they weren’t work­ing over the hol­i­day week­end. She looked at some other screen and said that it showed my ship­ment was in Bergen, NY. What? They must be pay­ing the truck dri­ver by the mile, as that is the long way to get to South Car­olina from Indi­ana. I thanked this per­son for their help and said that I’d call Grace on Monday.

Mon­day, Nov. 27 – The UPS web­site once again gives me the same response when I try and track the ship­ment, Man­i­fest Pickup. Called Grace and left her some voice­mail ask­ing what the heck is going on with my order. Where is it? New York? Has it even shipped? Grace calls back and apol­o­gizes. She has no idea why some­body told me New York. My tires and wheels are still in Indi­ana. First she tried to tell me that the delay was because Mount­ing & Bal­anc­ing was 4 to 5 days behind. When I pointed out that they were mounted and bal­anced on the 17th she changed to tell me that when they got pulled from the truck that Fri­day they must have been put aside and got “lost” in the ware­house. She would make sure that they shipped today.

Tues­day, Nov. 28 – Man­i­fest Pickup. Man, I hate those words. UPS’s web site says that they didn’t pick up my wheels again last night. It is now 18 days from when I first placed an order and 11 days since I “reordered” them. I call and leave Grace as polite a voice mail as I can muster. I want the wheels overnighted or 2nd day aired to me today or I would like to can­cel my order, again. She calls me later in the day and says that they shipped, really, she says that UPS just hasn’t updated their web site. I think, but don’t say, “Yeah, right. And Mount­ing & Bal­anc­ing are 4–5 days behind.” I do say, “OK, but if it doesn’t show that way tomor­row on the UPS site I’m gonna call back.”

Wednes­day, Nov. 29 – In Tran­sit. I can’t believe my eyes. LOCATION SCAN — 1:04 A.M. INDY 81ST, IN, US. I check the web­site sev­eral times dur­ing the day. Just before bed the last sta­tus is still In Tran­sit. DEPARTURE SCAN — 10:04 P.M. COLUMBIA, SC, US

Thurs­day, Nov. 30 – ARRIVAL SCAN — 7:12 A.M. AIKEN, SC, US. When started this ordeal my mother-in-law was stay­ing with us and I had planned for her to be at home to sign for the ship­ment, nearly 3 weeks later, she was now in Florida and obvi­ously can’t do it. The local UPS site is right up the street from where I work. I look in the phone book and they don’t have a local num­ber. All that is listed is the 800 num­ber which is prob­a­bly located deep inside a moun­tain range in Col­orado. At 7:30 I call 1–800-PICK-UPS and after lis­ten­ing to all 7 options, I am about to hang up as none apply, when the 8th unnum­bered option is to stay on the line. After a short wait, one of UPS’s Cus­tomer Ser­vice Reps, named Mary (I’m kid­ding, I didn’t even fol­low Les­son #1 above, I didn’t pay atten­tion to her name) answers the line. I ask if it is too late to change the deliv­ery address to my work. She takes down all my info and says, “I’ll mark it Urgent and pass it along.” Less than an hour later some­one from the local UPS place calls and leaves me a mes­sage say­ing that they man­aged to get the deliv­ery loca­tion changed. Less than an hour after that, the tires & wheels were on the load­ing dock at work. Now how do I get them home? I men­tally ran through my head a Miata.net mail­ing list thread from a while back on how many tires you can carry in a Miata and where….forget it. I enlist a co-worker to turn his car into a MSV for an hour. At lunch we put all four tires & wheels in the trunk of his Crown Vic, with room to spare, and drive to my house to put them in my garage. Les­son #3 – Maybe pay­ing a cou­ple hun­dred dol­lars more and buy­ing locally isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe.

Look­ing back at this you can see all the trou­ble was caused by me, the cus­tomer. The folks at Tir­erack went out of their way, sort of, to help me. I don’t hes­i­tate to rec­om­mend them to peo­ple and I have ordered from them a cou­ple of times with com­plete ease and sat­is­fac­tion since this incident.