canada tire inspection nightmare, long post

[Todd64]

Back to your windshield. Are these sort of things(all van glass in general) hard to acquire in Canada?

Apparently not. Because the L300 was brought into the US in the late 1980s as the Vanwagon, many windshield places will have it in their system. This thread give the part number as FW563.

Thanks. That's great to know.

[after oil]

i told him over a thousand views on this thread. i said things like "everybody knows CT has a bad rep" i told him i hear people say they got ripped off at CT.

thing was he was asking me what i wanted him to do, but he called me first.

So, are you back shopping at Cambodian Tire???

i wont be shopping there. its kinda like a vegetarian going vegan, if he aint eating meat, light as well quit all animal products. i have not and will not set foot in mal-wart even once since i lived here. i dont like to shop at chain stores, i might as well quit CT too. i've been fine without them for 2 months now.

i dont feel any better just because some other shmucko at CT phoned me.

[JMK]

he didnt seem to care really that they were wrong,

Exactly, that what sucks about the way our systems work.

Years ago in the job I am still in, I was told that the proper way to respond to complainants was to start the response with "I regret ... " and not "I'm sorry..".

Apparently the former denotes empathy while the latter accepts blame, and that would never do, after all on the heels of accepting blame is your liability.

The guy that called me was exactly the same, following the party line, perhaps the conversation was being recorded and he'd have to answer to his managers if he made any candid statements.

So this reinforces my dermination not to go to Canadian Tire unless there is no other possible alternative, in which case I will still reluctantly part with my funds there. But before I go there next time, I will ask myself, "is there any other way I could get the items I need?". Yesterday I started to purchase my Diesel additive, which I previously bought from Candian Tire, from Napa for example.

[bobenns]

Interesting thread.

I've had both good and bad experiences at CT over the years. It has an awful lot to do with the managers of each particular store. You'll notice as soon as you speak to any staff in the store. If they are happy and helpful, they have a good manager. If they are miserable or try to avoid you they don't.

It's a very big company now, been around a long time. I remember when they opened the first one in Edmonton back in the mid 70's. It was the farthest store west at the time.

Every store is different and earns it's own reputation. There are some good ones. That story about getting helped out in Port Alberni in this thread. I've heard that story before about another store. A family was moving out to BC from down east. Their old car broke down real bad and they were strapped for cash. They had kids with them. The folks at the CT store helped them beyond any expectation. Set up a camper for them to stay in and gave the father a job so he could pay for the repairs. They helped those folks big time. I don't remember where the store was but the story was in the paper. The people they helped really appreciated it.

I have mixed reviews of the CT store here in Kelowna. There are some good staff but they hire a lot of dumb kids too. It's often hard to get any help from the staff, but not always. The service dept is another story. seems the service managers at CT stores get a commission or bonus on the amount of work that goes through the shop. If the service manager owns a large boat then look out! (the old joke ; How do you tell how honest your mechanic is? By the size of his boat!) but I digress. In the past I have had experiences and seen some goings on at the service dept in the Kelowna CT store that I didn't like. I have been quoted outlandish prices for repairs I didn't need. I have seen the service manager outright lie to customers right to their face in public. One couple had been waiting over six hours for tires to be installed. They had been told two hours wait in the beginning. Of course it was the first day of snow when the tire shops were all run off their feet. He was the one who told them two hours in the first place. He should have been honest and told them it would be a long wait, but he denied ever having said what he said. He was just beet red in the face and making it all their fault. it was disgusting, he was lying to everyone who wanted tires that day to get his commission. What an ass!

However I had a recent good experience there. I was shopping for new tires for the Delica to get through inspection. The problem in Kelowna is the tire shops are all pretty slick and the service isn't all that good at any I've dealt with. I priced tires at several places and CT had the best price by far. So the dilemma of should I deal there or not. Well I recently had tires put on my GTO at another shop and the guy just mangled the aluminum rims that were in mint condition before he got his mitts on them. They were marked up something awful, so I wasn't going back there.

Well I took the rims off the Deli, sandblasted the peeling clear coat of the aluminum with some fine crushed glass and repainted the rims with the old tires still on. Then I took the rims down to CT, bought the tires and gave them the rims. I was just back to my car in the parking lot when my cell phone rang. It was the lady I just dealt with at the service counter. She said she noticed that my rims were just painted and they might get marked up a bit changing the tires. I told her I knew that was a chance I would have to take and she told me that the woman who was installing them would put a new rubber ring on the tire machine and do her best. So when I came to pick up the wheels I was amazed, not a scratch. And the guy who gave me the wheels back pointed out that one had taken a lot of lead to balance so they were all labeled as to which location to mount them for least vibration. i was very pleased and made sure he was aware of it.

The next day I got the call from customer service asking if I was happy with the work. I made it very clear that I was and I hope it gets back to the person who did the work. So it seems to me that enough complaints have gotten through that they are trying to improve the reputation.

Now, Powell River is a small town and like a lot of small Canadian towns has had it's share of hard times. Not a lot of the good paying jobs left, just like in my home town in Northern Ontario. Seems a lot of people pull up and move on over the years from these places because there is just not a good chance of a good future if you want to work and earn a good living. It seems to me that some of the people who stick around these places really just aren't the brightest ones that grew up there. Not all, but some for sure. They get a job at a place like CT and just stay forever like bumps on a log. Because their world is so small, they develop a lopsided sense of their own importance and abilities. The think they know what they don't know and they think that because they don't know that nobody else knows. If they don't know how to do something then it just can't be done. They are just ignorant bumpkins, narrow minded fools, smart as a sack of hammers they are, unworldly and not worth the time of day. So when somebody comes along with something they haven't seen before they are right out of their element and they make even bigger fools of themselves by demonstrating their stupidity and ignorance as if it were something to be proud of.

We need to come up with some little Delica stickers for all the members of this forum. Two kinds, a happy face one and a sad face one. Each time we have a good experience at a shop or parts store etc, we place one of the happy stickers on the outside door frame at the entrance. If we have a bad experience we place a sad sticker. Keep them very small but designed so we will recognize them easily and it will be a signal to the other members of what they can expect at that place.

I've babbled long enough, going to bed now.

Bob in Kelowna

[JMK]

Just a heads up for anyone in the Bow Valley, I've been having real good luck with the Napa in Canmore. We brought in a VW Corrado from Japan in March and the OOP said it needed a new inner tie rod. So far Napa has brought in 2 but it seems that the equivalent domestic part is 1" too short. In spite of the fact I have to keep returning them, they continue to go well above and beyond in their search to help me out. There are lots of pluses: they are in a nice brand new store, of the 3 staffers Jeff, the owner/operator looks to be in his late thirties or early forties and he's the kid of the bunch so they have a lot of experience, which is a sharp contrast to the counter staff in Calgary where staff is so hard to find it's usually high school kids. But the best is I can send them email to source parts and the replies are real prompt.