Adventures in Tires

Although it's been a wonderfully mild winter up here in the darkness of New Hampshire, I recently noticed my rear tires were getting decidedly worn...like, nearly bald worn. It's an all-wheel drive (a 2005 RAV-4) which means the tires must be replaced all together. It is marginally more expensive than a regular car, but being able to pull out of my driveway through 30+ inches of snow so that the plow guy can clear things is well worth the price (7/8 of the years I've lived here, we've had 30+ inch storms; I've only had to replace my tires once before).

Being just one person, I have just one car. This usually means that I get to sit around enjoying the best of last year's Car & Driver magazines for a few hours on a vinyl couch. Exciting! I decided to take an early morning appointment figuring there would be few people in front of me, so I'd wait a little bit less. As it turns out, I could have slept in... the dealership now offers a shuttle service for singles like me. You drop off your car, they drop you off at home (or the mall, or wherever) and then come get you when your car is done. Hanging out reading the paper with my 4th cup of coffee is pretty much what I'd do on a rainy day off anyway.

Of course, there's always a catch. Driving home from work two days later, the air pressure warning light came on. I take the next exit, find a nice empty parking lot and check my tire pressure... no problems. So I call the dealer, who tells me just to reset the indicator and go about my business, which I do. Light stays out the rest of the way home, problem solved. Or not. Today, the same thing happened. Same light, same pulling over, etc. This time, I took the car straight back to the dealer instead of calling. Oh, the fun. "Did you check the tire pressure?" Yup, 29-ish PSI in all four brand new tires. "29! It should be more like 32!" Um, the owners manual says 29. "Oh. Did you check your spare, it has a sensor too." *sigh* Eventually they agree to look at it.

About 30 minutes later, a very apologetic customer service agent comes out with my keys and tells me I'm good to go. The problem? They accidentally forgot to "properly reset" the pressure sensors for the new tires. I may wear high heels, but I have wicket PSI skills.