Again...Sears...REALLY?

[BobWaitz]

Broke a Craftsman screw driver Friday night on the hinge screws for an M-series door. Stopped at Sears yesterday and they happily replaced it.

[studegary]

When I was young, the store of that type to go to was Montgomery Ward. We didn't have a Sears then. Even when I was married and we bought our first house, we had to cross the river (Hudson) to get to a Sears. For quite awhile, we had both, then Wards went away and Sears is barely hanging on - they may be just waiting for their lease to be up in the Galleria Mall.

[acolds]

The part I find funny is that Sears and Wards were catalog merchants first and now Amazon is using that to kill the regular stores. Maybe Kmart/Sears should go back to their early roots as mail order or on line . Get some of their old timers and return to past which they use to know how to do

[studebakerkid]

This looks like as Good a place as any to put my recent fiasco with Sears and bring this thread back up. On of the front tires on Pinkie came apart while she was parked in my driveway. I noticed it Monday when I jumped in Pinkie to go someplace so I had to drive a brand X. I put on a spare and drove down to the local Sears store where I bought the the tires and the salesman refused to honor the service contract and stated that it was not valid and started getting irate. I went home and called Sears Corporate and they confirmed that indeed my contract was valid. To day I went back in to the Sears Automotive Center and talked to the manager since he was working today. The manager confirmed that my contract was indeed valid. We then walked out to Pinkie and I opened the trunk. Yep that was warrantee covered damage he confirmed but then he went on to state that other people have come in to the store and wanted that size tire for their cars and the size was no longer made so the best he could do was offer me a refund. I took the refund and then drove one block to the tire store that handles the rest of my tires Franks Tire in Union Gap and Eddie looked up my tire size 165R15 and "yes indeed they are available in an all season radial.....how may you want?" I only need two since I run them on front on stock Studebaker rims with moon caps. The Sears Automotive Service Manager in Union Gap lied to my face about that size and them being available.

I ordered two tires from Eddie and drove home and immediately called Sears Corporate Customer Service and filled a complaint and they are proceeding with an investigation of that manager.

Sears Corporate has a website dedicated to publishing the horror stories of their former customers. Corporate is trying to weed out the problems but down at the local level is the problem employees that have no clue of what customer service is supposed to be let alone what it is that they are supposed to be selling. This same Union Gap store tool department has been fumbling around for more then a month and hand tools are still in buckets and the two sales clerks have no clue of what tools do what.

Those of you with Sears purchased tires on your vehicles are in for nothing but misery if you need something as simple as flat repair.

[JLB]

I'll add my Sears fiasco story...........although it does not involve cars or tools. Long story short, less than 4 year old top of the line Kenmore refrigerator quit. Called Sears A&E Service dept. for an appointment. No problem we'll be there in two weeks! Once they determined the problem, they ordered the parts and told me another two weeks before they would arrive. Once installed, they worked but not as they should so I still did not have the use of the refrigerator. Called again and was told I'd have to go to the back of the line.............two more weeks before they returned to repair, the repair. We were 6 weeks without this refrigerator.
Never again will I be a Sears customer.

[DEEPNHOCK]

<snip> Yep that was warrantee covered damage he confirmed but then he went on to state that other people have come in to the store and wanted that size tire for their cars and the size was no longer made so the best he could do was offer me a refund. I took the refund and then drove one block to the tire store that handles the rest of my tires Franks Tire in Union Gap and Eddie looked up my tire size 165R15 and "yes indeed they are available in an all season radial.....how may you want?" I only need two since I run them on front on stock Studebaker rims with moon caps. The Sears Automotive Service Manager in Union Gap lied to my face about that size and them being available.<snip>

Not taking a side on this, but the lowly department manager (de-jour) probably had no recourse, as Sears has been on COD with many vendors for non payment of their bills.
Perhaps the manager knew he could not order your tires and get delivery, so he said they were unavailable...
Next (irate) customer...

[wittsend]

Tires are sold by size AND Brand. When Sears stated that the size tire you needed wasn't available it is likely because in the brands Sears carries it was not available. Down at "Frank's Tire" Eddie is likely not held to those restrictions. Seemingly an indepenent he can probably order tires from anywhere. So, while I agree the the salesman at Sears was not forthright I don't think they are lying when they said the tire (in the size you needed) wasn't available. I can't think of any (modern) car today that runs 165 width tires. And Sears is only likely to carry that which sells well.

[JRoberts]

Sears is in a death spiral. Ask a guy who just tried to get his lawn tractor serviced and fixed. I will never walk into a Sears store again.

[whitehawk759]

I went into our local Sears with some busted Craftsman tools and discovered that they were two weeks from closing and were not doing exchanges any more. I was referred to a Sears twenty miles away or Lowe's, which now sells Craftsman tools. Personally I think Amazon may have had a hand in Sears demise since you can buy just about anything on-line these days.

[t walgamuth]

Yeah, I remember going to the store in South Bend as a kid. When I was little the biggest impression was from the beach balls bouncing on the column of air from a vacuum. Later enjoyed looking at the guns and electric trains with dad and the allstate motor cycle.

[wittsend]

The Sears Catalog WAS my "search engine" back in the 1960's.

Seems it is time to change out a vowel in Sears quality offering: "Good, Better, Bust!"

[t walgamuth]

I remember looking at the ladies underwear in the catalogue! I liked national geographic too. As a side point it got me into national geographic.

[benaslopoke]

Yep, The Sears catalog was essential out there in the "out house"..

[sweetolbob]

Personally I think Amazon may have had a hand in Sears demise since you can buy just about anything on-line these days.

Probably more than a little but isn't it a shame that Sears had the customer and capital base to be Amazon easily and it took Jeff Bezos with nothing close to the Sears resources to pull it off. It was their's for the taking.

Bob

[showbizkid]

Actually there was a great story online a couple years back (can't find the link now) about how Sears' website was in place a couple of years before Amazon and the CEO's intention at the time was to do just what Amazon eventually did - build a distribution portal that would serve everything to everyone. Unfortunately, the Wall Street types took over and ousted him before his vision became reality.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a staunch capitalist. But Wall Streeters generally have no interest in building businesses; when they buy a legacy corporation it's only with the intent of either merging it or selling the assets and then putting a stake into the corpse.