Discount Tire Direct

Wow!

A marketing buzz phrase is, “Wow the Customer.” Most places say it but don't do it. I had to become a customer for Discount Tire Direct and here is what I have to say: “Wow!”

We had a ice and snow storm a few weeks ago. I learned to drive on the Canadian Border so I didn't think much of it. Then I made a stupid mistake.

I was pulling out on to the road and turned my tires too sharp, the car snowplowed and went straight into the curb at 5mph. It was a solid hit on the front passenger rim. I continued to drive and the car started shaking violently at 5 mph.

As a former Network Engineer I looked at this as an Engineering problem, so I turned the car off for 20 seconds and turned it back on. Amazingly that didn't fix it. So did what I would do if a network slowed down, I got out of the car and got back in. That didn't work either.

I drove home at 40 mph, the car would shake off the road if I went faster. The next morning, I took it to my mechanic at Precision Auto and they swapped the rear tire with the front and put the spare on the rear. That worked but I need a rim.

They searched for a week and finally found one at a junkyard 60 miles away. I took it to my tire shop and found it didn't fit.

After all this I searched for some answers and went online. It turns out that the Nissan Sentra uses a 4x114.3 mm (4x4.5") bolt pattern, if you have this bolt pattern it means that in a former life you committed a crime against nature so heinous that hell has no punishment great enough for proper justice.

While online I noticed a link to Discount Tire Direct I figured it couldn't hurt to try.

My salesman was Wyatt, and at first I worried as he was so confident the rim he recommended would fit. After my week of bad luck I thought he might be overconfident. But he shipped out the tire and it arrived the next day. Discount Tire Direct has an awesome shipping dept. It cost me $70 for the super cool looking rim, a used steel one would cost over half that, if I could find one. After over a week of searching I was pretty sure I couldn't.

Sure enough the tire fit like he said it would, but there was a problem. My lugs didn't fit the smaller holes in the rim. It took special lugs.

I called Wyatt back in a panic, he told me to calm down and he sent out the lugs and the special socket for it, free of charge.

Now I have great looking rim, that really makes my Sentra look snazzy. If I ever have this problem again I know it can be fixed in a day, and life is wonderful thanks to Wyatt and Discount Tire Direct.

As soon as I save up a little money I'll get a matching rim. But I wondered what the Sentra would look like with all four tires on good rims. A quick session in Photoshop showed it would look pretty cool.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE