Hey folks!
This discussion really got me thinking about Sears and what it means to me, and how badly things have gone in the last few years.
I wrote up a post for Car Talk about it. Hope it sheds some light on a few things, and I hope you like it. Great topic.
So what does @CapriRacer get for coming up with the topic? 
Seriously though, I did enjoy your article. You pointed out how Sears stopped investing in both its customers and its employees to stay in business and that strategy may put it out of business.
My undying appreciation? 
I suppose “undying appreciation” is better than nothing…not much better, but better…
No, seriously, its VALUABLE!
Like, if I see @CapriRacer broken down beside the road, I am totally going to wave at him instead of just driving right past.
Yeah I enjoyed the article too. I think its a little more complicated though than just dumping their employees and offering shoddy merchandise. Lots of underlying issues like what was being taught in the business schools concerning short term profits and then of course the politics of opening up industry to globalization not to mention the lack of patriotism by the upper crust industry leaders who could care less about the US. Some of us used to see the ridiculousness of a Ford worker making $80K a year with no education installing headliners, but now its $10 an hour so from one extreme to the other. Then some will say the public won’t pay for quality and others say we have no choice but to buy the crap that’s offered to us.
I suppose everyone is correct to a certain point and there is no good answer. A company needs to be profitable in the long run and every management team makes decisions that doom it or propel it to a profitable future. I remember in our town a can company came in and paid considerably more than some of the other industries in town. One day no fewer than four of the owners of these other companies went to see the can plant manager telling him he paid too much for labor and we don’t pay that here. He threw them out telling them he will pay what he thinks they are worth and they can do the same. The plant was the most profitable of all the other plants in the country with a good labor force. Three of the others went bankrupt and one was bought by the Japanese.
Total quality management says that you provide the quality that is needed at the price that expected. Not shoddy but not necessarily something that will last forever. You certainly can’t do it without good people and it certainly is not a short term game in my view. My fear though is that we have had a generation of lunatics educating the masses and will still have some rocky times before we can a good balance again. When I see what is going on at Yale and Princeton and Harvard etc. I fear these kids will have a tough time with no good foundation. Maybe when we can have an open and honest discussion of issues without the divisiveness and name calling we’ll be on the road. But the buzz words today to insure compliance are racist, fear monger, hate filled, __ phobia, and so on.
I did notice yesterday that the little Hometown Sears store a few miles down the road seems to have closed up though. At least the lights were off.
News: 1 dead, 1 seriously injured after tire explodes at New Hampshire mall at Sears Auto Center in Salem, New Hampshire early Saturday morning.
There are a great many dangerous situations when dealing with tire repairs. I wonder how well trained the Sears technition was?
They don’t say but was this from the ring coming off the wheel? Do they still use those? Was it in a cage like it was supposed to be? Did they even have a cage to work on truck tires? I thought this was pretty common knowledge, at least it has been for me since I was about 10 years old. I hope the manager didn’t order the guys to do the repair knowing they weren’t equipped to handle truck tires.
They don't say but was this from the ring coming off the wheel? Do they still use those?
I too thought those split rims were outlawed. They are just too dangerous.
Well my Boss said after a split rim ring hit me in the head and almost gave me a concussion and 7 stitches"People still put their hands in the cages and break their arms and wrists" as an excuse not to buy a cage for inflating the split rims in(but I will admit I didnt chain the tire as directed-I was going to bump the bead against the “ring” before I chained it.I think Blue Cross paid for the the emergency room visit,they never turned anything in on workmans comp,even when I had to have surgery for a broken vertabrae,the supplemental insurance the employer offered had to pay for it(never turned it on on workmans comp) I got as much from the suplemental insurance I had deducted from my weekly paycheck as I had paid into it{almost had to jump through hoops to get that-(“load 16 tons and what do you get”,) note this company is the second largest taxpayer in the “community” now.Dont have no great love for these Folks now.
I was working shuttling trailers in and out of the shop around 1980 at a major trucking company. The shop manager started yelling at our tire man who was airing up a tire outside of our recently purchased tire cage.
The yelling was interrupted by an explosion and the ring went through a cinder block wall 20 feet away and damaged another wall 20 feet further away. Luckily it missed the 7 or 8 people in the shop at the time, including me.
Anyone trying to air up a tire outside a cage again immediately got tools thrown at them.
just an FYI:
It is possible to screw up mounting a regular tire and have an explosion. So while we all recognize that split rims are dangerous (We do, don’t we?), that might not be what happened. Way too many people ignore the dangers - and we have some who post on this website.
@CapriRacer
"It is possible to screw up mounting a regular tire and have an explosion."
Please describe this so I know what to look for when I have tires mounted.
This would be good to know.
CSA
According to our local paper (eagle tribune) there is no word on what type of tire it was. OSHA is now investigating.
Sears/KMart lost my business for several years with their lousy service and the fact the things you wanted were always out of stock and you had to always go to Wal-Mart to get it anyway.
Their rewards program is a nice feature. They lured me back into the local Kmart with surprise points. These are kinda nice and often pay for a few simple things in their entirety. Sometimes they only apply to anything in the store but then they can apply to one dept. such as clothing. Sometimes they are so specific like “mens sweaters” that I don’t even bother. Some of these have so many exclusions listed at the bottom in fine print that you can’t tell what good they are even for. They often exclude the basic essentials that you would be buying anyway which I find annoying. Either way, this program is a nice start.
We have a “Sears Hometown” store locally and this leaves A LOT to be desired. Any sales or rewards that count at another store don’t count here. You go in expecting to pay a certain price for a tool and they tell me I have to drive 100 miles to the nearest mainline store to get that sale price. Well this got old and I pretty much won’t set foot in the place. They can selectively choose what promotions they want to participate in.
Story said: A preliminary investigation showed Almon was in the process of fixing a large truck tire on an industrial tire changer when the incident occurred.
One news article said it was a truck tire that exploded. Saw this article about a kid working at his dad’s shop injured by an exploding car tire.
“Here, a Chinese tire manufacturer used a tire bead design with a long history of failing and causing deaths and catastrophic injuries, even though much safer bead designs were available,” he added.
you did the right thing, by walking out of that loser store
I have a great idea for Sears that would bring back customers–put the Craftsman name on underwear. I would switch from J.C. Penney Towncraft underwear to Sears Craftsman underwear in a heartbeat!