Excellent Service Must Be Tire-ing

I've had some stupid bad luck lately in the world of tires. A little less than 2 years ago I got new tires put on my car from Canadian Tire. I held out for a good deal on a higher quality tire, rather than the usual cheap tires I would've gotten. The tires have been fairy good up until recently.

A couple months ago, in Calgary, I had a flat on the driver side front tire. I threw the spare on and drove to the nearest Kal-Tire shop. $25 and about 15 minutes later I was on my way. Turns out there was a problem with the valve stem.

A couple weeks ago, I notice the passenger side front tire was getting low. I fill it up, but hear a bit of leaking air that would start or stop depending on how I pushed the valve stem. This time, I topped up the tire and took it to Canadian Tire and they fixed it under warranty. Unfortunately, it took about 2 hours.

Today, while driving home from work, I hear noises coming from that same tire. I drive past my house to a nearby gas station to check it out. I step out of the car, walk around expecting to see a flat tire, or at least low, but all the tires were full. I take a closer look at the passenger side front tire and I see it... a bolt was stuck in the tire tread. I try to pull it out, but it's really stuck in there. Eventually I pry it out. It turns out that it wasn't a short bolt stuck in the tread, but rather a long bolt stuck right in the tire. At this point, air is rushing out of my tire faster than Usain Bolt (no pun intended, or maybe it is) running across the finish line.

I go into the gas station store to see if they have some of that tire fix stuff. They do, but it's like $15, and I could get it properly fixed for just a few dollars more. So I throw the spare on again and drive over to the next nearest gas station that has a service shop attached. But the shop is closed by then, so I head back across town to Canadian Tire, where they have a 2.5 hour wait. Ugh!! I then drive downtown, find a tire shop that's closed, and then go to the other Canadian Tire. They could fix it in about 1.5 hours. By this point it's 5:45pm and I decide to try one more place. I go over to Kal-Tire at the Sears auto centre. I go in there, wait for a few minutes, and now I'm thinking that it's 5 minutes to close, and there's a slim chance they would even get to talk to me, let alone fix my tire. Boy was I surprised... The guy asks the usual questions and then takes my key. There was no hesitation! He goes out and pulls my car into the bay. He takes my tire out of the trunk and fixes it, replaces the spare, and even cleans and checks all my other tires. As he's pulling the car back out of the bay a mere 10 minutes later, the other guy comes out to the till and starts typing stuff up. He then says, "I just need your signature here." I walk up, sign the paper, take the other copy he hands me and I ask, "Is that it?" "Yup." "Wow, thanks!" Even though I didn't buy my tires through them, they waived the $19 tire fix fee on the grounds of it being under warranty.

I'm buying my next set of tires from Kal-Tire! Simply amazing service!