Sunday, November 7, 2010

Winter tire blues! Buyer Beware!!

Well,well, winter is here and its that time of the year where the joy for bargaining for price reductions is heavily curtailed because everyone is rushing to either buy, have winter tires installed or both.

A brief survey I did on how much it would cost to just change tires was shocking. Costco runs a service for their customers and the price was $11.00 per wheel and was based on first come first serve basis.What a chaotic and terrible scenario I saw at their store which is close to Ines road. People begin to queue up as early as 5.00 o'clock am while the store begins to serve them at 8 o'clock. Tired, hungry, and stupefied loyal customers jostle and push in the queue until they are served. In fact some will never get served as they are told that Costco can only serve a certain number of customers per day.These poor souls will have to go through this process again the following day if they dare go back. For a high profile store like Costco, this is highly unacceptable and primitive to say the least.

At a Mercedes-Benz store the charge was higher at $29.00 per wheel with an almost two to three week advance booking. Well higher price and longer waiting period but at least there was sanity. Off I went to Canadian tire and the waiting period was only 3hours -What a world of difference? When I asked how much they charged, ouch!!!!my foot!! I got the shock of my life. $42.00 per wheel before taxes. The explanation was that that was the price for low profile tires. This was almost double $22.00 they charge on ordinary wheels.

So, this winter be wise and do not just run away from the brand stores, you may end up paying more and getting atrocious service. Good Luck!

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