Tire Drama

Last week my boyfriend and I were heading to happy hour. When he got in the car he said, "your tire is flat." I assumed he meant it needed air, so we stopped at a gas station.

Nope, totally flat.

Boyfriend was less than thrilled to be changing it because perhaps he had mentioned that he saw a small bulge in the tire several months ago and that I needed to take care of it. And maybe I didn't and just kept driving on it.

Okay, he did mention it and I didn't deal with it. So he had to change my tire in the rain. Oops.

But, we made it through that night, he put on my spare, and I looked up tire shops on Yelp. A local shop got great reviews, so I went there. I also looked up prices for my tire ahead of time to get an idea of what it would cost. I was expecting about $200 each, and knew I might also need new tires for all of them.

The shop was awesome. The guy told me I needed two new tires in the front. I asked if he meant three, since I'd need a spare as well. He said he could take one of the old ones and make it my spare, since all it needs to do is hold air. Duh. I appreciated his honesty, since I totally would have bought another tire from him. He said they warranty all their tires and if I didn't care about brand (I certainly don't) he could get me both tires for $320. Nice!

They didn't have my tires that day, so they also gave me a free rental for the next day while they worked on my tires. I paid $5 for an upgrade to a nicer rental (I splurged, what can I say), and bought the extra insurance on the rental just in case. The total for the rental was about $20.

Obviously this wasn't my favorite way to spend $340, but I feel like I was treated well and got a good deal on my tires. I would definitely go back to the shop again!

As far as my finances, I used the money I had planned to use for my 75,000 maintenance to cover the tires, so my E-fund is intact. But, I still need to do the maintenance, so we'll see how that goes. I budgeted for my car insurance bill to come this month, though it may not show up 'til January. If that's the case, I can take care of the maintenance on December's paycheck. If not, I'll wait another week and do it in January. I'd really like to avoid the E-fund, since new tires and maintenance are things I should plan for, not real emergencies.