The Nevada Tire Scam

Two years ago I posted about they guys at the Chevron Station in Elko, Nevada telling me that I needed to replace a tire on my TM. The TM was less than a year old. When I asked him to point out the problem, he pointed to the little tabs of rubber sticking out on the sidewalls as if the tire were going to blow up. I respectfully told him I thought these were just tabs from the mold and that, no, I didn't want to replace the tires.

This is an old scam that was very common in Nevada when I was much younger. I thought it had gone away in these more enlightened times. But I was wrong.

Yesterday we stopped at the Shell station in Wells, Nevada and a guy came out, looked at my truck tires (which have about 20,000 miles on them) and told me he could see the steel threads and that I was in serious trouble. I looked and saw no steel or even the wear bars and plenty of tread. I declined his offer to put the truck on the rack, at which point he told me I would never make it across the desert. I was a bit less polite in my rejoinder. So he left me and went over to two women who were filling their car with gas. "You got real problems with this tire...."

I've half a mind to call Shell and complain but I doubt it would do any good. It appears to be a pervasive problem in the Silver State.

Keith