THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

Oh man I am so frustrated right now.

TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ VERSION - 2 shops, 2 different alignment readouts, $200 (possibly) wasted at one shop, $1500 at the other, alignment still not complete cause everyone is a moron, and I'm really mad.

So, where to start???

Started out by looking for a truck alignment shop, looking for one that is a real truck tire shop so that they at least have some kind of an idea of what they were doing. Never got this done before, so not really sure what to expect, but hey gotta start somewhere.

So I found a shop in Greensboro called Piedmont Truck Tires that sold tires and did alignments. Cool, I can kill 2 birds with one stone. Bobtail an hour out there and start by showing them the wear on my tires and they say the definitely need to start by checking the alignment. The tech was at lunch so me and the sales guy talked tires, they didn't have the tires I wanted, so I told him I would definitely get them to check the alignment but was going to make some phone calls about tires in the mean time and to hold off on tires for the time being.

I start by calling Petro, as Mebane is pretty close to Chapel Hill so that was my next best bet for tires. They have the exact tire I wanted (a high-end Michelin tire with a very low rolling resistance). I ask them the price and HOLY **** it was high. Everything at that Petro is high including fuel. But, they also had the Centramatic balancers there which were a really good deal for $200 installed, it would have cost me more to order them online direct from Centramatic, ship them to the house, and then gone somewhere else to get them installed. So, I start out by calling SNI maintenance to see if we have a discount on Michelin tires through Petro. Turns out we do, but that I need to start by calling my DBL (ok, ICA? I don't have a friggin DBL). Whatever, so I call my ICA. She tells me to call the same person I spoke with at SEM (we've gone full circle here), who then tells me to call Paccar. Ok, Jesus. I ask about discounts, and the only way I can get the fleet discount is to use the money from my maintenance account.

REMEMBER THIS, ANYONE LOOKING TO COME ABOARD. SNI'S DISCOUNTS CAN ONLY BE LEVERAGED IF YOU ARE USING MONEY FROM YOUR MAINTENANCE ACCOUNT, WHICH WHILE YOUR LEASE IS ACTIVE, IS UNDER THEIR DISCRETION IF THE MONEY IN THAT ACCOUNT CAN BE USED.

So, I call up Paccar, explain I want to get 2 new Michelin steer tires and Centramatic balancers installed at the Petro in Mebane. He tells me I can't pay for the Centramatics from my account. Ok, whatever I'll pay that out of pocket, but I still want my steer tire discount. Then he asks about the tread depth. I tell him the tread depth is fine on both tires but one tire has severe wear and won't pass DOT and the other one has some sidewall damage (I played up the sidewall damage a bit, but I am NOT running mismatched steer tires. No way no how.) He tells me that he will get it set up but I still have to go to the shop in Mebane, and have them measure the tread depths and then report back to Paccar to get the approval to replace both my steers with my money that I am paying to put into my very own maintenance account.

Anyway, back to the alignment shop I was still at. Alignment checks out, I get the bill, $189. HOLY ****. They didn't do jack **** but charged me for a full 3 axle alignment when all they had to do was verify it was good, took 20 minutes. I'm obviously in the wrong business. He tells me its just a bad tire. Whatever, at least I know its good, so the extremely expensive tires I am about to buy will be in good shape for wear. Or so I believe.

Alright, bobtail 40 miles over to the Petro in Mebane. Its 1630 now. Give them the reference number from Paccar and she comes out and looks at the tires. I show her the bad one, and then explain that I don't want to replace only 1 steer tire, so I kinda point at this little rubbed area where I stupidly drover off a sharp concrete ledge in a truckstop to turn around on my other steer tire, and talk about some sidewall damage and she catches my drift and goes and calls Paccar. She doesn't have a tread depth gauge, but explains to Paccar that one tire won't pass DOT and the other has some sidewall damage. Paccar refuses to do anything until she gives them the tread depth. So, she hunts down a tread depth gauge from one of the mechanics and measures the depths, although the depths were fine she again explains the damage. Paccar then says they have to call SNI (WHY? WHY IS EVERYTHING A GIANT RUNAROUND?) and then will call the Petro back.

Sit around for a hour, no calls back. Finally I get impatient and call into SNI SEM to see what is going on, and as I'm getting through she walks out saying she just heard back from Paccar and they approved replacing both steer tires and also wanted a 3 axle alignment done. Well, **** you Paccar you don't tell me to get an alignment done that is not your ****ing job I took care of it myself this morning, so go **** yourself. She says you wanted Bridgestone, right? OMG. NO. I WANT MICHELIN. Now she has to call Paccar back AGAIN and get it RE-APPROVED. So I see on the sign that a 3 axle alignment check is included for free with 2 new steer tires. Well, I just got it done this morning, but hell, its free, why not have it checked again? Ok, whatever.

Another hour later she comes back out saying that SNI told Paccar that they didn't have an account with Michelin (BULL-----CRAP, YOU JUST GAVE ME THE DISCOUNTED PRICE ON THIS EXACT TIRE WHEN I CALLED YOU EARLIER SNI), well "technically they do" she says but that it would involve more phone calls and something about SNI paying from a credit card?? WTF? Ok, **** it, time for SNI to kiss my *** I'll just pay for it myself, discount be ######. She was really nice and ended up giving me a LOWER price on the Michelin's than SNI quoted me on the discount earlier. Fair enough, I'll just put it all on my debit card and we'll GET ON WITH LIFE.

SO NOW, of course the Michelin's aren't in stock at the Petro shop so the manager herself has to drive over to Greensboro to get the tires. She gives me a free meal card at the Iron Skillet so I go grab a cheeseburger and watch RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD on the TV in the shop's lounge until she gets back an hour later with the tires.

OK, IS IT FINALLY TIME TO MAKE PROGRESS? YES.

Tech dismounts the old tires, mounts new ones, balances the new ones, installs the Centramatic balances, its just this one poor guy working the shop right now so I grab the head of the torque wrench and slam it on each lug nut as he torques them and we blast around both wheels, DONE.

Then sit around for another hour until a few trucks get taken care of until they can check my alignment. Finally get everything hooked up to this little redneck looking alignment machine that is pretty much what I would expect a Petro to have, but it is what it is. Long story short, NOW the alignment is off according to Petro. Rear axle is off, and depending on that more axles could be off. So, now I'm stuck with a dilemma. Who do I trust? The alignment shop's old piece of crap machine or Petros newer, but still, crappy machine? End up deciding to have Petro align it. It would make more sense to me that the steer tire wear would be caused by an alignment issue than it just "going bad".

He starts with the rear axle, takes 10 minutes. Now the toe shows off on the steer axle. Ok, time to adjust that. He ends up standing on a pipe wrench on the cross-tube that the tie rod ends connect to. It won't budge. He says he's now allowed to heat the tube to get it to break loose. So he's now jumping on the pipe wrench trying to get it to budge. Then the alignment tool piece that is connected to the front wheel rim falls off as he is jumping and smashes to the ground. Supposedly a part of a machine that costed around $30,000. Yeah. So now he is trying to put it back on, but he can't get it in the same spot. Alignment numbers are showing as different on the computer screen now. Well no **** it just feel 2 feet and smashed on the concrete floor and you're trying to put it back into the exact same spot on a machine that is reading tenths of degrees?? LOL YEAH RIGHT. He tells me I'm probably going to need to replace the cross tube. I end it here and tell him to just tighten everything back up.

So, damages so far:

$190ish for an alignment check (aka ripoff) that MAY or MAY NOT (leaning towards MAY NOT) be accurate from Piedmont Truck Tires in Greensboro, NC

$1515 for 2 new very nice Michelin steer tires, Centramatic wheel balancers and a single rear axle alignment.

I will say this, the people at the Petro were super nice and were doing the best with the tools they had. It isn't a full service truck shop its a friggin Petro. The manager took off half of the price of an alignment and charged me $50 bucks for aligning and shimming the rear drive axle and the attempt to get the front end aligned, which the tech did try everything he was allowed to do to get the cross bar loose within reason. I told him to stop when I saw the alignment mirror thing fall off the wheel, however, as I just couldn't trust it any more. As I said earlier she also gave me a discount that beat SNI's discount on the Michelin tires and all things considered I would go back there again for simple stuff.

So, now I have 2 problems I need to deal with. My truck is still not aligned and I got ripped by Piedmont Truck Tires, regardless of whether their machine was right or not. I feel like I cannot trust anyone now. I have huge problems trusting shops because everywhere you go 90% of these places just want to bend you over and **** you.

Piedmont Truck Tires - I feel like I got ripped off BAD with them charging me for an alignment (after I took a good look at the receipt, that is what it says, not "check alignment" but "triple axle truck alignment"), which has a chance of being WAY OFF. It may not be, it could be Petro's machine too. But I doubt it based on that weird tire wear.

And problem #2 - like I said, my truck is still not aligned. I will be ****** if I am going to ruin a set of brand new expensive steer tires. I asked the tech at Petro if he knew anyone else that specialized in truck alignments and he said check into Snider fleet solutions in Greensboro. I want to go somewhere that has the full platform alignment machine. I am done ******* around with rinky-dink setups and shops. Looks like I have got yet more phone calls to make.

Depending on if the alignment shows as being off at alignment shop #3, whatever shop that may be, then I will probably go back to Piedmont Truck Tires and say hey, first of all ya'll charged me for a 3 axle alignment when all you did was check it, and second of all you checked it, told me it was OK, and yet I take the truck to TWO other shops which tell me it is off. At which point they will shrug their shoulders and tell me "too bad so sad" and there won't be a thing I can do about it, because to fight it means taking time off the road and that is not going to happen.

What a joke of a day. My God.