AAA + Costco + GPS = Safety

This past Sunday, Emmy and I returned from our trip to Napa Valley. We had a wonderful time (which I will definitely write about later)... except for a little mishap that could have been pretty disastrous for us during our drive back to SoCal.

While driving about 70 MPH on the highway, the front left wheel of our car blew up (probably from something sharp that I had inadvertently run over). I didn't hear a big bang, but I began to feel the car losing traction on the left side and the ride got very bumpy. I quickly took my foot off the accelerator and slowly drifted to the right. Fortunately the car and all the traffic around me had the presence of mind to slow down so I could reach the emergency lane.

There was smoke coming from the front left wheel and sure enough, my tire had a huge rip along the sidewall. The tire was toast and I knew that I would have to get the spare out of the trunk. It was about 90+ degrees outside and changing a tire (front driver side) on a freeway is a very dangerous thing to do. This is why that $35 AAA Membership Fee is worth every penny.

I called AAA via cell phone and the dispatcher had someone out to our car within 30 minutes. The repairman had my spare on in about 5 minutes. Now I had to figure out how and where to fix/replace my blown tire in the middle of Santa Clara County. Enter GPS & Costco...

Let me first say that I think Costco is the best place to shop. Here's why:
1) I purchase all my car tires from Costco because they have a great warranty program. The blown tire was a Costco tire, so that was where I wanted to go.

2) Costco has great products via their website that are not available in their stores. Before we left for Napa, I had purchased a GPS navigation system from Costco.com because for a limited time they were offering a $150 rebate for that specific model.

Sitting on the freeway, I turned on the GPS system and typed in the word: "Costco".
Lo and behold, there was a Costco that was about 4 miles from the next freeway exit.

When we arrived at Costco, the manager of the tire department took my blown tire, measured the amount of tread I had left and prorated the price of a brand new tire. In this case, I paid $37 for a brand new tire that without the discount costs $87.

So we left the car there, walked around the warehouse for about an hour, did some shopping, then picked up 2 polish sausages for a quick lunch. Afterwards I picked up the car and we were back on the road to Orange County.

Crisis averted.