Now that we've finally arrived at our destination, we didn't get in until almost 1:30am, I thought I'd give an update on our side and where things got pretty deplorable from a service perspective.
Our first blowout happened while I was running down the highway just about a mile before northbound I-81 exit 109. The tread wrapped itself around the axle 4 times, having gutted out the underside of the wheel well, fender torn off, lots of underpinning damage, and busted the top hyraulic fitting on the rear most leveler on our 6-point system.
The first call went in to GS, they dispatched for a tire change despite me saying that beyond a tire change, we need to get mobile again to continue our trip and it was going to take some work to get things tied back up and secure for us to run down the road. It took about an hour for the operator to arrive.
The issue here was, and as the towing operator confirmed, they always just dispatch a "simple" tire change. He said the reality on these things are, it's hardly ever just a tire change. The operator was great, but came under-prepared. It was Sunday, Father's Day and he said they've done upwards of 90 calls for this same type of incident so far this season. He had to call for help, they had to drop the axle shackle u-bolts and separate the axle from the spring just to unwrap the tire. After about 3 hours of hot, roadside work, we had a spare on. 4 hours total time elapsed later we went up to exit 109 to check air pressure in the spare, plus remaining tires to be sure we were good to go.
Then we lost tire #2, luckily right at exit 109 and we were able to get into a parking lot. I called back this time requesting that we would have to have a tire replacement. My initial call in, I sat on hold for about 10 minutes before talking to someone. When I finally did, we had the usual info exchange and I was told we would get a call back. The call never came, so in the meantime I figured, what the heck, let me make some calls. I found some super helpful roadside assistance big-rig folks who not only would come out within an hour, but they had the LRG GY 614's in their hands! They also said they are a provider for GS and they'd just need to call them.
I called GS back. I told the initial person who answered we were sitting stranded again and hadn't heard back, I told her who I spoke to by name, and she reconnected me with her. I got nothing but a handful of excuses - it's Sunday, it's Father's day, I'm busy helping other customers(!) all came pouring out of her. She then concluded her excuses with, well since you've talked to someone and even gotten prices, maybe you should call them back and just have them do it since we'll reimburse you.
Ok :-) I hung up.
Roadside tire changes are no fun, they take time. We got blasted with a super nasty thunderstorm with dime sized hail in the process. Now 9 hours elapsed, my truck having idled the entire time to support running our residential fridge's inverter, plus keeping our puppies air conditioned, we were super pleased and couldn't have asked for nicer people to help us.
In the end, I had to do all the leg work, something I paid and hoped GS would have supported me through. I didn't get that service, and the less than compassionate and enthusiastic person who didn't work with us proved they wouldn't be there for us when most needed.
