‘While I was waiting I changed the wipers’: BMW driver takes his car to Walmart for flat tire service. It backfires
A Walmart customer was shocked when one location's tire service department wouldn't work on a wheel he removed from his BMW himself. So why wouldn't they?
According to Jaime (@solisjaime777), the Walmart employees repeatedly denied his requests to have a flat tire fixed on his vehicle. In a viral TikTok that's accrued over 514,000 views, he details all of the ways he tried to help the workers more easily service his tire.
Jaime said that despite purchasing a jack and tire iron from the store and removing the tire himself, he was still turned away.
Too low for service
"So check it out, how crazy is this," Jaime can be heard narrating at the beginning of his video. The first frame of his clip shows a jacked-up car with its tire removed, exposing a bare brake and rotor.
According to the TikToker, employees at this Walmart's tire service center said the vehicle was too low to fix its flat tire. Despite getting a jack himself and lifting the vehicle up, Jaime says he was still denied assistance.
Baffled and frustrated, Jaime expressed that he didn't understand why he wasn't told this from the get go. Presumably, the workers could see how low to the ground his vehicle was—so why wait?
He says in the video: "How crazy is this? I come to Walmart with a flat tire, had to wait for the guy to come from his hourly lunch, which I did. So while I was waiting I changed the wipers." At this point in the clip he pans over to an empty box, then to the jack beneath his BMW.
"You might be asking why is this jack and this 4-way here? Because once I waited and then they came out and told me that the car's too low to jump on the ramp," he says. "It's too low."
"This is ridiculous"
Jaime says his recommendations to the Walmart workers kept getting denied. "OK, put air in the tire and get it up there. 'No, it's too low,'" he says, reenacting his suggestions and the workers' responses. "All right...and, 'We can't touch it.' OK, I wish you would've told me that earlier."
The Walmart shopper says that if they're unable to work on his vehicle, could he at least use their tools to fix his own flat. "Let me borrow some tools. 'We don't let you,'" he continues.
At this point, he decided to jack the vehicle up himself and remove the tire. This was to make it easier for the workers to help service his whip. He was still turned away.
"So now...we have to just turn you away. No, so what I did was I bought a jack, a 4-way, and I jacked it up," Jaime explains. "And then I said hey check it out, here's the tire. 'No, it's against our policy to receive a tire like that.'"
The TikToker appears to express his frustration at this statement, dumbfounded they wouldn't take the removed tire from his car.
"Stop it. Is there anywhere in this store [that says] do not bring in your tires without them mounted on the car? I don't see anything like that," he says. "I think that's absurd. What do y'all think? This is freaking ridiculous. Just fix my tire, guys, that's all I want. I want to go home." He sighs again before saying, "this is ridiculous," as the video comes to an end.
More Walmart tire woes
The Daily Dot has previously reported on other Walmart customers who vented their frustrations with the chain's tire service.
One mechanic said the work they had to fix on one shopper's truck was from a previous botched repair at Walmart. According to the auto tech, an employee of the chain damaged the client's tires and wouldn't balance them. He said this didn't make sense, as they shouldn't have mounted the tires if they couldn't perform a proper balance.
Another Walmart customer seemed to have tire balancing issues as well. A North Carolina-based mechanic shared how one driver brought their vehicle into the shop. She said that upon getting a tire rotation at Walmart, her vehicle was wobbling after driving it on the road. With further inspection, the tech pointed out there was a litany of different issues that extended beyond a simple wheel imbalance.
After seeing the lack of care put into the customer's tire service, the mechanic urged folks to avoid the chain for any any auto service.
@solisjaime777 Walmart Tire service #foryoupage #walmart #carrepairing #thissucks #dobetter ♬ original sound - solisjaime777
TikTokers chime in
One commenter who responded to Jaime's video said their experience fixing flats at Walmart was much different.
According to them, the workers seemingly just didn't want to help Jaime with his vehicle. "Bro. I’ve taken all 4 tires to Walmart because all 4 were flat. They had no problem putting the new tires on for me fully inflated and back to me. They just b pulling policies out their buts…" they said.
This same sentiment was echoed by another Walmart tire customer who shared a similar anecdote: "My walmart let me use their jack to remove my tire in the parking lot and bring it in to be changed sounds like they didn't like you blocked the bay but they should have took it."
It seems that Jaime wasn't the only one who was informed by a Walmart "policy" they suspected was complete bunk.
One shopper said they purchased tires from the chain, only to be told they weren't made for highway driving. "I bought an extended warranty for my new tires at Walmart, they wore out after 1 year and they refused to warranty them. Guy told me they weren't meant to be on the highway regular car tires," they claimed.
Another person wrote they were able to get their tired serviced after it was removed from their vehicle. "I took my tire just the wheel and they changed it ... they just don't want to do it," they said.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Walmart via email and Jaime via TikTok comment for further information.
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The post ‘While I was waiting I changed the wipers’: BMW driver takes his car to Walmart for flat tire service. It backfires appeared first on The Daily Dot.