Tuesday, January 31, 2023

More on my middle class tax refund debit card. And other stuff.

 

when people are really screwing up an activity that should be fairly straight forward.
You see the way those guys are fixing my car?
Ya, what a clown show.
by MexicoSean March 17, 2005

That's the way i feel about this tax refund bullshit. This should have been a straightforward operation. Send me a check for the money you stole from me and I will deposit that into my checking account.

Easy peasy japanesy.

But no. I told you about my hassle to get the first six hundred of it back. That was thursday or friday of last week.

So yesterday, monday, i drove down to the local credit union atm to get the rest of my money back. Got a hundred left on the debit card. Okay. ATM says $2.50 fee. I click okay. It asks me how much money I want? I say 100 dollars.

Well fuck me runnin the goddamn machine says sorry insufficient funds. I could have got 80 bucks for a 2.50 fee and left about 7.50 on the card. Fuck that. 

So i spent about 5 bucks in gas to drive to the nearest credit union where they gave me the full one hundred bucks with no fee. WTF???

Got the money though. So while in town i drive over to America Tire Depot to get tire prices. Find out they are now Big Brand Tire. Never heard of em.The tires on my 99 dakota are cracking badly, and the outside of the front tires are slick. Due to my not rotating the tires often enough. As in never. Maybe a steel cord showing here and there.

Guy looks up the tires, says i got em for $164 each. My eyebrows sprang skyward when i heard that price. He printed out the deal for me, and I looked at it, looked at him, looked at it, looked at him, said thank you and left. 

Out the door price tires accessories alignment(for $115 bucks used to be 85) total was $1061.

Ho Lee Fuck. Didn't realize tires had gone up that much. I would like to sell the truck, but with bad tires on it i can't get my asking price of $2500.

So my new game plan is to drop back ten and punt. I am contemplating having body work done on the truck and a new paint job. 

Maybe having a shop my grandson knows and trusts replace the intake manifold gaskets, and a couple of the injectors. I can't do that work right now due to reasons.

If I get it painted i won't be so embarrased to have my wife be seen in it. As for me I like my trucks to look nasty. But she don't.

8 comments:

  1. Had much same experience down here last summer when I replaced a pair of tires. Wal-Mart had the best price on Goodyear Wranglers, but no had in stock and had no idea when they would arrive. They did not take orders, only installed what was sent to them. This was story at 3 different locations. One did have Goodyears, but with very aggressive tread. I don't like hearing road howl.

    So went to Discount Tire. No Goodyears either, but they had some the price was just a little higher then Wranglers. I have one vehicle and I drive to work every day - not much choice. Oh - the pair $428 installed, balanced and road hazzard warranty. Standard stuff.

    Tires be expensive.

    Not planning in turning in this truck. Have owned since 2003 and a new truck is ree-dick-uluss expensive. Like driving an economy house around, one that can be totalled at any time. Don't need that - old beater truck is fine by me. Better to put in a couple of thousand to fix it up nice.

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  2. Tires are made of .....oil. And they cost more now than a couple years ago for the same reason gas costs more. Check out Craigslist, FB Marketplace etc. See if anyone has any used tires for sale. Lots of people buy a new truck, get oversized or offroad tires and then sell the ones that came with the vehicle. You can get some deals that way. Still gotta pay for mounting and balancing though. Replaced mine with tires I had bought 18 months ago to beat price increases. Cost me 27 a tire for mounting balancing and disposal of the old tires.

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    1. Gonna start calling some used tire stores around here. My grandson paid 100 bucks for 4 tires mounted balance he ordered off the net.

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  3. Lol, I have an '01 F150 in the driveway with a blown motor and 4 good tires! Brother, we need to get together!

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    1. I'll put the 3.9 l motor from my dodge into your ford. We'll giterdun.

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  4. Wait till you get the quote for new brakes. Here in Central Texas, the good old boy shop, "only" charges $320 per axle. And no I don't have the time or energy to change them myself.

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    1. I have done all my own work on my vehicles for years. But like you i do not have time at the moment nor do I have the energy to get down on the concrete for things like that. A quickie oil change place wanted 500 bucks to flush my son in laws transmission fluid. Crazy.

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