almost
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Except not even that. Every time I’ve been to a D&B, despite the bar, it’s been populated mostly by parents and their kids. So basically a direct CeC competitor.
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It’s weird to think that within a decade, all of the big mall anchor chains may be gone. Sears is dead, JC Penney has been steadily declining for years, Macy’s stores are struggling, regional chains like Lazarus, Marshall Fields and Kaufmann’s all became Federated stores and shut down. Where else can I go to get a pair of pants and get squirted with cologne as I walk in from the food court?
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Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
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Sears created affordable housing kits for regular people, starting in 1908.
Sears, thank you for your service.
http://www.arts-crafts.com/archive/sears/
http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/1908-1914.htm
I have Craftsman tools (hand tools, power tools). Some of them are from the 1960s and 1970s. They work ok. They’re reliable. That’s harder to say these days, even Makita has surprised me with a decline in quality. My friends in the building trades have all moved to Dewalt and Milkwaukee power tools.
Sears may have been wobbly and ailing for years. I still think the end it faces now
is really a bad way to go. In the grand scope of companies in the world still operating, Sears was too young to die.
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You are missing the point (or I didn’t explain it well).
Sears is / was a national chain - so if I bought tires from them with the warranty and got a flat on the other side of the country, they would fix it for free.
Otherwise Jim-bob’s tire barn tells me the flat can’t be fixed and I need to replace the tire. and because its a fancy european size they need to order it and it will be three days. Oh and because the vehicle is AWD you should replace all four - and that will be $2200 please. And yes, this happened to me in both Ohio and Montana, which is why I started to buy tires at Sears with a warranty.
As far as I am aware, there is no equivalent national chain to fill this gap
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RepairClinic’s headquarters is a few miles down the road from us! We’ve never ordered from their website since they’re so close, have retail space in the building and, best of all, are open on Saturday.
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I’ve always had good experience with Discount Tire. They honor their warranty at any of their 900 locations.
TireRack.com also offers road hazard warranty that will reimburse you for the cost of repair/replacement up to a certain amount. You can take your car to any repair facility.
That would be awesome to have them close by. Can’t tell you how many times I needed a part ASAP. Even waiting for overnight shipping can be a PITA.
That’s really the biggest thing I’ll miss about Sears. Yes, I can find everything I need online but sometimes you really need something that same day and they were often the only place you could find it.
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The downside is that you’d have to move to the Detroit area. ::whompwhomp::
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Craftsman tools were always decent (not top of the line, but good). Their real value came with their lifetime warranty: Sears guaranteed that you could send in or bring in any Craftsman product in any condition, no receipt needed, and get a brand new replacement for free. I remember my grandfather and my father both advising me to always buy Craftsman tools either new or used for that reason. Now that it’s owned by Black & Decker, they’re starting to phase that out on their hand tools or require receipts.
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I’m guessing the rest of the board rejected it. But it is fun to imagine Lampert in the mirror, yelling “You’re fired! No, you’re fired! No you are!” etc.
Cars, mopeds, and scooters, as well.
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I got the point; I was just being snarky. But I didn’t realize that it was so difficult to get non-Sears companies to fix a flat. It sounds like Jim-Bob’s tire barn was trying to, er, take you for a ride. Unless it was a large hole, or on the sidewall, any garage should have been willing and able to plug it for a few dollars.
In many parts of the country, unfortunately, people see an import vehicle with out of state plates and think “sucker”
It still boggles my mind how Sears missed the plot when they could have out-Amazoned Amazon and out-Walmarted Walmart, only to give up right before the internet exploded. Having Eddie Lampert happen to them only made their death slow and prolonged.
Back in the day, my family went to Sears for just about any household item, and we still have a window fan that’s about 60 years old now. Just give it a few drops of oil now and then, and it just keeps on spinning. You can’t even get a fan built that well these days, unless you go to an industrial supply house.
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