Goodyear Finally Responds

It took two months, but I finally got a response from Goodyear regarding our tire problem on January 1st. We had purchased the replacement tire in Midland, Texas on our way to Tucson. I took pictures of the defective tire, and planned to deal with Goodyear once we arrived here.

I called Goodyear on January 6th and was told they would not consider reimbursement for the tire if we did not have the defective tire to send to them. I explained the situation and told them I had taken several pictures, but the guy blew me off and said I was out of luck. They would not do anything based on pictures. I thought pictures would be sufficient since it was the same problem as we had last year.

I went to Goodyear’s website to see if I could find contact information for the corporate offices. They had an area on their site where you could send them an email, so I sent off an email. I never heard from them. It really irks me when companies have a spot of their website to email them and they don’t respond!

I remembered hearing Clark Howard on the radio say that if you don’t get satisfaction from the customer service of a company, you should find the names of the President or other top officials and send them a letter. I got the name of the President and VP of Marketing from a news release on Goodyear’s site, and I sent them each a letter with a picture explaining the issue.

Yesterday I finally received a phone call from Kathy at corporate headquarters. It took almost two months to get to this point. She said that after reviewing the picture, they determined that they would reimburse us, but since there was some tread wear on the tire they offered us 50 percent of what we paid for the new tire.

Since we made the mistake of not keeping the defective tire and the tires are four years old, we took the 50 percent. Kevin will continue to keep an eagle’s eye on the remaining tires.

Today there was a craft fair in the park. I had some leftover quilted sunglass cases I made last year, so I signed up for a table. There was no fee, so what the heck. It was just an in-park event, so there wasn’t much activity, but I did sell three of them.

Tucson has been a very busy place this week. There is a world golf championship going on with Tiger Woods in attendance. Major League Soccer has had some games with David Beckham playing. The Tucson Rodeo has been taking place all week. The rodeo is such a big deal that the kids get two days off school each year and there is a Rodeo Parade. It’s the largest non-motorized parade in the country. I watched it on TV, lots of horses and carriages.

The weather this week has been perfect. It’s been in the mid 70s, sunny and low humidity. An absolutely perfect week for hiking. Tomorrow is supposed to hit 80.

Next week is our last week in Tucson. We have planned a couple of excursions, so I’ll have more interesting posts next week.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!