The day after labor day (09/07) I got my new tires installed at Costco. They quoted us 45 minutes to an hour but were done in just 45. My only complaint? They left all the caps to the tire valves quite loose so we had to tighten them. Every single one!
Fast forward to this past Tuesday (09/22) and I got a warning on the dashboard while driving to a doctor’s appointment. I wasn’t quite sure what it was for and forgot about it until the next day (09/23), so I took the car for a drive around the neighborhood until I could get it to come back up.
It was a TPMS error and we determined it was likely a sensor in one of the rims that monitors tire pressure. I don’t drive the car much so I find it interesting how that happened only two weeks after getting new tires. I’m not saying they did something, as they are reaching their natural end of life, but the timing is weird. I looked it up and read the process of replacing tires can either expose a failing sensor or even cause damage to one, so who knows what the case is here. If the car wasn’t already 8 years old I would have a problem with the timing of the failure, but those sensors last from 5-10 years so it’s not unreasonable that it could have already been failing.
In any case, I called Costco and set up an appointment at their tire center for Thursday (09/24) at 3:15. When we brought it in they said they’d let me know what they found, explained the lifespan of the sensors and pricing, and said it would be about 45 minutes to an hour.
While browsing the store waiting to hear from them, we decided since it’s $58.28 per sensor, if it was one sensor we’d just replace that one, but if it was two or more we’d have them all replaced.
Surprisingly, we weren’t even called to be told the status until 47 minutes later (4:02 pm). It took them less time to replace all four tires! In any case, it was a single sensor so we opted for that. At that point they said it would be another half hour.
We were done shopping so we chilled in the café with ice cream and soda. I purposely sat along the side where you can watch them make pizzas in the back. They have pre-portioned dough that someone spreads out on a pan and uses a roller to create little air pockets to prevent it from bubbling when cooking. Then they place it on a flat round machine that spins while a pre-portioned amount of sauce is added in way that prevents them from having to manually spread it. Then they put it on a rack for the person who handles the toppings.
This is the part when things got dicey. It was driving me nuts watching the toppings employee continuously grab the pizzas from the bottom two slots, where the employee kept adding the most recent prepped pizza bases, and ignore the top ones. This went on the entire time I sat there watching. Why wouldn’t they rotate between slots so that they weren’t letting any pizzas get old? I imagine the sauce drying out the longer it sat there. It was seriously bugging me.
In any case, it was interesting to see how many pepperoni pizzas they make – nearly all but two pizzas in the twenty minutes we sat there were cheese. They weigh out the cheese based on pizza type (pepperoni gets less) and then count out exactly 60 pieces of pepperoni. Quality control to ensure you get the same experience every time. Unless, of course, you get a pizza that sat for over twenty minutes being ignored for some reason!
My phone rang at 4:23 pm but no one was there when I said hello. We assumed it was to say the car was ready so headed over. So weird they wouldn’t even try to call back though.
When we got to the car the air valve cap was missing so Joe had to go over and ask for one intending to put it on himself. However, the manager insisted the guy who worked on the car come out and do it. Of course we had to tighten it just like last time. I do not understand their aversion to tightening the valve caps! Laziness? How long could it possibly take though?