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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Thursday, August 05, 2010 at 21:28:48 :
It's looking like Les Schwab is one more business that's going downhill since the old man died. We have two tire stores in Kellogg, Les Schwab and Silver Valley tire. They've both given me good service over the years, both changed lots of truck tires for me and both charged about the same to do it. I used to always buy my car and truck tires from Les Schwab because the prices were okay and the service was very good, despite the fact that I've had two of their Toyo light truck tires delaminate on me.
About 2 years ago I started noticing that they were simply not competitive on tire prices any more. The manager, who has always seemed like a real good guy, gives me his "best price" and I have to tell him it's just simply way too high and I go buy them elsewhere. Today I needed a big truck flat fixed so I called them up before I brought it down and asked the lady what it would cost. "Oh, I don't know if they do split rims anymore. I'll have to ask." WTF? She comes back, $33. Ouch. I think it was $25 last time, but that's inflation. Then she says, "Probably be cheaper for you just to get a new wheel." WTF? She's worked there forever, she knows the difference between a wheel, a tube, a flap, and a tire. So I talk to some guy. "Oh, I thought you meant a pickup tire. Those wheels are only $50. When somebody has a split rim pickup wheel we just sell them a new wheel. For your tire, you're looking at... dismount... mount... new tube... that'll come to $66" 66 bucks to fix a flat! How about he just says, "We don't want to work on split rims any more"? So I call up Silver Valley tire. $18.50 for labor, no charge for the patch. I take the stuff down there, the guy's got all his split-rim tools lined out, goes at it like a pro, has a good aim with the sledge, and has it done in no time. I hope they don't find out how much Les Schwab is charging these days and raise their prices to match.
Now that old man Schwab is dead, it looks like whoever's running his company is just going after the soccer mom customers these days. Same thing's happening to Harbor Freight, except the old man is still alive and steaming mad, but his son pushed him out of the company and is living like a king milking it for all he can get out of it.
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