Good Sam ERS Surprise

darsben1 wrote:
Wonder why the guy paid?
I would have told the provider to hit the road!

My friend did challenge the bill but the service wouldn't leave without being paid. Telling someone to hit the road is very unrealistic and would have solved nothing.

2chiefsRus wrote:

Bird Freak wrote:

bukhrn wrote:
$95 to fix a flat !!!!! :E Outrageous.
A tubeless tire should have just been plugged & re-inflated, 20 min tops. Unless it was other than a simple puncture.
Should have just taken the tire to a local gas station, around here, they'll fix a tire for $10, (which is also too much) but, times have changed.
If GS paid to change the tire with the spare, did they in fact repair the original tire & put it back on?

From the OP all they did was put the spare on. Total rip off!!

I just re-read the original post. He does say that they REPAIRED the tire in addition to putting the spare on. I do agree that $95 is too much for the repair.

Hmmmmm... we must be reading two different posts. He stated:

It didn’t take long for the service to take off the flat and put on his spare tire.

However the service guy said:

The road service tech explained that Good Sam pays for the service call and the mileage to drive to the site but not the labor tofix the flat.

So, the OP says all he did was to remove flat tire and install spare. I guess the service tech considers this fixing the tire.

Ron

Oakman wrote:
The road service tech explained that Good Sam pays for the service call and the mileage to drive to the site but not the labor to fix the flat.

I agree that the OP's second post is much more clear. When he said "but not the labor to fix the flat" in his first post, I took that to mean that the flat was repaired in addition to the spare being put on. Sorry for the confusion. I hope it all works out. Knock on wood, haven't had to use ERS lately but haven't had to pay when I did use it in the past.

..I had a similar thing happen to me once - got to campsite and found a flat tire, called Good Same ERS.

Within an hour a guy from Wingfoot Tire service (a Goodyear dealer) comes out. He took tire off, dismounted it from wheel, thoroughly inspected it inside and out to be sure was OK, repaired issue with valve stem that caused the leak, inflated tire back up, put it back on, all is good. Had brought a tire with him of same size, brand I already had, would have sold such to me and put it on if was needed (fortunately it was not).

Since he HAD repaired the tire (valve stem), I was handed a bill for a whopping $15. I thought that was very fair and gladly paid it, especially for as remote as we were and how quickly they came out.

All that said, I do agree that if all that was done was to replace the tire with the spare your friend already had....There should not have been a labor charge. If they had to do anything to REPAIR a tire, that's a different story.

I see GS is involved with this thread, hopefully they will make it right for you.

I sent a PM to Zack, GSRoadsideAssistance so hopefully things will be set right. If not, I hope Good Sam quits using that particular roadside service company.

Here's a photo of the bad tire. Things could have been worse, had my friend had a blowout he probably would have had damage to the trailer.

Oakman wrote:

darsben1 wrote:
Wonder why the guy paid?
I would have told the provider to hit the road!

My friend did challenge the bill but the service wouldn't leave without being paid. Telling someone to hit the road is very unrealistic and would have solved nothing.

It would have solved the $95.00 out of pocket. The road service guy is not going to call the cops when he is scamming.

ReneeG wrote:
Interesting. We had a flat, called GRS, they got there within the hour, changed it by placing the spare on, no charge.

Same thing for me on Tuesday of this week. I did tip the guy. Apparently so did the OP, just way more than I did. Please let us know how this is resolved.
RichH

Here in the Northwest, if you take a tire into Les Schwab, they usually fix a flat for FREE, (we've bought a lot of tires from them over the years)

seaeagle2 wrote:
Here in the Northwest, if you take a tire into Les Schwab, they usually fix a flat for FREE, (we've bought a lot of tires from them over the years)

If your tires are from them they will fix it free. If you know the guys in the shop they will sometimes cut you a deal.

The thing about Schwabs is you PAY for that service!! They are one of the most expensive tire shops around but I still get almost all my tires from them just for the piece of mind traveling in the weest

Chris

csamayfield55 wrote:

The thing about Schwabs is you PAY for that service!! They are one of the most expensive tire shops around but I still get almost all my tires from them just for the piece of mind traveling in the west.

That was definitely not our experience. As full-timers we were in Missouri heading for Alaska. We wanted all new tires for the trip. We didn't care where we got them. We wanted best price and a manufactured date of 6m or less. We called many places in all the states to Washington. The best price came from Schwab and all tires matched the recent mfg. date. We were extremely satisfied with their service. We got our Michilins in Oregon.