Monday, January 23, 2006

Sometimes the kindest acts are small and unannounced

I moved to the Sacramento area from Phoenix, AZ. Phoenix was the place where I owned my first car, the family's 1978 VW Rabbit. My current vehicle, a 1994 Chevy S-10 pickup, was initially leased and then bought in Phoenix. The first time I needed new tires for my truck I went to Discount Tire in Phoenix, known here in California as America's Tire.

As the driver of an 11-year-old vehicle (12 this June) I have been experiencing fairly regular trips to "the shop" over the last few years for repair or replacement of various components that have exhausted their servicable life. So when twisting the windshield wiper stem on the steering wheel column last week caused wiper fluid to pour out onto the ground instead of onto my windshield, I wasn't surprised. It turns out what had happened was that the tube from the wiper fluid tank and pump had pulled out of a rubber seal, so pushing the tube back into the seal fixed the problem. My troubleshooting the cause of the leak, however, had left the wiper fluid tank nearly empty, so a refill was in order.

As regularly as I can, I take advantage of America's Tire's "free tire rotation" service which it offers to its customers. I had this done just last Friday and the technician who serviced my truck said all the tires looked good and that they were wearing evenly. Fine, good. One more thing I won't have to worry about for awhile.

I didn't get around to buying a jug of windshield wiper fluid until today, Monday. When I arrived back home and opened the hood to refill the wiper fluid I discovered the tank was full. The only thing I can figure is that America's Tire filled it for me. Certainly there aren't wiper fluid bandits who open the hoods of the vehicles of unsuspecting motorists, check fluid levels and top off as needed.

Now, wiper fluid is cheap (I paid less than $2 for one gallon), so I realize America's Tire isn't endangering corporate solvency even if this is a regular practice nationwide. Whatever the cost is to them to do things like this is more than made up for in the repeat business sure to be generated by these small gestures. Whatever props my little posts of binary bits can convey to America's Tire are well deserved, so bask, America's Tire, bask.

1 comment:

C-had said...

I have had hit and miss experiences with these guys, mostly good though. The one time I had a problem was during a free rotation they placed one of my rims face down on their shop floor scraping the hell out of it. When I brought it to their attention they pretty much said they didn't do it, but apologised anyway... I did have them sell me my new tires for the Camaro but only after I told them the story again and they cut me a really nice deal and were very careful not to scratch these!