A tire shop worker in Mississippi recently dealt with a customer situation that left him completely frustrated. The problem started when a customer got his tires installed but had no way to actually pay for them. Collins works at City Tire in Batesville, Mississippi. He made a TikTok video where he acted out what happened with this customer.
In the TikTok video, he plays both himself and the customer to show people how the whole thing went down. After his team finished putting on four new tires and doing a front-end alignment, Collins told the customer he owed $1,282.85. That’s when things got awkward. The customer asked if the shop had financing available. Collins said yes, they do offer financing options. But then he asked the customer if he had already gotten approved.
The customer said he thought his wife took care of it. Collins checked the computer and found out the application got denied. When he told the customer this bad news, the guy admitted he had no other way to pay. He just figured he would automatically get approved for the payment plan. This answer is what makes the worker want to slap him in the video before he asks if the customer can actually get the money somehow.
You can’t just assume the tire shop will give you a payment plan
A lot of tire shops around the country let customers pay over time instead of all at once. This helps people who need new tires but don’t have over a thousand dollars sitting in their bank account. Different companies like Affirm, Katapult, and Snap Finance work with tire shops to offer these plans. Some plans work better for people with good credit, while others are designed for people with bad credit or no credit history at all.
But here’s the thing that this customer didn’t understand. You have to get approved before the shop does any work on your car. Most shops can check if you’re approved in just a couple of minutes. Depending on which company you apply with and your money situation, you might get approved for anywhere from $50 to $5,000 or even more. Some of these companies care more about whether you have a job and a bank account than they do about your credit score.
The big mistake this Mississippi customer made was thinking financing would just work out without checking first. Even the payment plans that say no credit check still don’t approve everyone who applies. You need to fill out an application and wait to hear back before you tell the shop to start working on your vehicle.
Luckily for everyone involved, the customer did come back with cash to pay for his tires. In the video, you can see him apologizing for causing problems and leaving the money at the shop. Everything worked out in the end, but it shows why customers need to make sure they actually have financing approved before they let anyone touch their car.
More and more people are using payment plans to buy tires these days because tires keep getting more expensive. When you need a full set of good quality tires, you’re looking at spending well over $1,000 in most cases. Payment plans make sense for a lot of folks. But shops and customers both need to talk clearly about whether the financing actually went through to avoid messy situations like this one.
