by Mike Bird CC0 License https://www.pexels.com/u/mikebirdy/

Coming on the heels of Christmas and needed home improvement projects car problems were way down on my list of things I wanted. But the family van started quite reluctantly, even though I hadn’t left a light on or anything to drain the battery. Even after the drive from the office to home when I shut the car down and tried restarting it, it was reluctant. I headed out to get it fixed.

A while back I had moved on from another auto parts store to O’Reilly. They were beyond nice and helpful, very tolerant of my minimal knowledge, and always willing to help install something. I stopped by and described the problem. Two other guys were in there with battery problems, too. One of the employees (I think he was Gary) came out and tested my battery, and pronounced it near death. Our crazy temperature fluctuations had prematurely killed a lot of batteries, I was told. He helped me pick a battery, keeping our heavy electronic use in mind (DVD system and electronic everything), got the battery that was in stock, and came out to install the battery for me. By the way, the testing and installation is free.

When Gary was done switching out the battery, he told me the old one was from O’Reilly, too, and he’d check the warranty on it. I hadn’t even realized. I would have missed out on the warranty if he hadn’t checked.

Zack, the assistant manager on duty looked up the warranty information, and it turned out the battery was still under warranty. I got my batter for free, and got $14 back (difference between the cost of the dead and the new battery).

Needless to say, I was pretty thrilled. While The Zac Brown Band’s song Toes played in the background Zack said “We take care of our people.” I’m kind of fond of that song now.