Quick, courteous, and worth every dime.
I am the family genealogist, and I went to Newark to look up some headstones of my ancestors. On the way home, as I was about to get onto Garden State Parkway, I hit an enormous pothole and blew the sidewall out of the driver tire in my rental car. Normally this would not be a big deal; I am perfectly capable of changing a tire on my own, provided I can get the tire up off the ground. But the car in question had one of those useless pill jacks and a TINY crank, which wouldn't even reach out from under the car at the closest point of the chassis to the wheel that was also anywhere near the outside part of the frame of the vehicle. I tried valiantly to jack it up, but when you don't have the tools, this isn't going to work.
So I ended up having to drive to the nearest tire repair shop. According to my GPS, that was the Midas on Springfield in Irvington (and it was only about 2 miles from where I was). I limped the car along to the shop, praying I wasn't going to bend the rims on the wheel, and pulled in.
They were fairly busy and it was close to the end of the working day for them, and I genuinely felt bad about showing up that late, but in this particular case I didn't have much choice. The man at the desk asked me to give them "a few minutes", and I sat down with a book and my knitting, fully expecting that with the number of clients and vehicles that they had ahead of me that I would be there for two hours.
Fifteen minutes later, the guy came back, told me they didn't happen to have that size of tire in stock, but they were able to put the spare on for me (which I sincerely appreciated).
Now, my family was pretty unhappy when I said I was going to Newark. Granted, it has a fairly high rate of crime. But at NO POINT did I feel like I was in any sort of danger when I was at this shop. Everyone was perfectly courteous to me and seemed genuinely happy to help me.
I wasn't able to make it to all the headstones (have you *SEEN* Holy Sepulchre!?!?), so I will certainly be making a return trip to Newark, and if I have any sort of vehicle difficulty, this is the shop I am going to seek out (assuming I have the luxury of choosing). And I feel confident referring my family and friends there too, should they find themselves in the same position.
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