Integrity wins every time

I had an issue with my tire guys this week let me tell you about it.

I  was heading out to a networking meeting Tuesday morning when I backed over my fence that had fallen. As soon as I felt it, I knew that I had backed over the nails side up.  Sure enough, the low-pressure indicator came on less than a block away.  Fortunately, the tire store is less than a mile away from my home. I went right there, and they confirmed my tire had been punctured. My tires carry a warranty, and it was covered.  While they were replacing it, the service person came to me and said the lugs nuts were defective and needed replacing.  He showed me a website that said Ford's lug nuts had issues. He told me to take the old ones to Ford, and they would give me a refund.  He says it happens all the time.  Well after the tire replacement I went to my Ford dealer, and they said they never heard of such a thing. I went home to print out the article they guy showed me, but when I Google searched it I found that was a year old and in the meantime, the class action suit against Ford's lug nuts had been thrown of court a few months ago.

I returned to the tire store and confronted the service guy.  He said well he was only saying that they were hard to work with and there were issues and folks had gotten credit at dealerships.  Very vague and anecdotal.   He offered me a 50% refund. No way. Well, I confronted him in front of many customers there, and his manager came over and settled the dispute by giving me the full refund on the lug nuts. He did tell me that there was a chance these lugs nuts expanded and became hard to work on.  I told him that if that had been explained to me, I wouldn't have any issues or complaints.

The bottom line is if the guy said they might cause issues when I am out on the road trying to change them myself I would have gladly paid the $40 for the new lug nuts. But his deception hurt the reputation fo his company and made him a liar and a thief.  Was it worth it?