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7/29/24 Our custom made artillery style rims from Wheel Smith finally arrived, but not without the saga continuing . Ordered back in mid June, with the expected lead time three to four weeks, I had heard nothing at this point, so I called on Friday (7/19/24), to inquire there whereabouts. They had been shipped out complete with the hubcaps and beauty rings, on the tenth of July and were still not here.

Now to be fair, mother nature threw us a curveball, maybe a screwball and tossed a tornado our way. Fortunately, we had very little damage, but three miles south and one mile north got hit hard, knocking down one hundred foot pines and telephone poles like they were bowling pins. It blocked us in for four days while town, county and utility crews did their thing. Thank God for the blue collar men and women that came to our rescue as far away as West Virginia and Georgia, to restore life back to normal. Last week, they were our hero’s. We were without electricity for four days, internet/phone for three as well as cell service for one. And par for the course, the one day without cell service a storm came thru which left us with that helpless feeling not knowing how severe it would be. As I said before, we came thru it unscathed, with the help of a whole house generator, grocery shopping the morning of the storm and a 7.5k generator built into my daily driver.

That said, the wheels, hubcaps and trim rings, which were on the truck that Tuesday (day of the tornado) were delayed. Fair enough, I have to chalk that up to just bad luck. The issue I had, was according to the tracking, they rescheduled the expected delivery day to Friday (7/26/24), 8 days later. That following Monday (7/22/24), I looked up the local distribution center’s phone number only to get connected to a customer service rep that was clearly not from the US. After a lengthy conversation explaining the situation, having to repeat myself several times and asking him “can you say that again”, he finally said he couldn’t give me the local distribution centers number. Instead, he would arrange for them to call me back within the hour to arrange delivery. Following Murphy’s Law, that never happened and I was reluctant to call again as it took ten or so minutes just to get to that point. I decided to it wasn’t worth the hassle so I would just wait until the expected delivery on Friday. I hadn’t planned to start working on the truck until early August as I’m still finishing up projects around the house.

To my surprise the hub caps and beauty rings were delivered on Thursday but no rims. I eagerly awaited the arrival of the rims on Friday but they did not show. Tracking showed it was rescheduled for the following. Unfortunately the shipping company’s customer service does not have weekend hours so I couldn’t express my displeasure and would have to wait, yet again till Monday.

They were finally delivered today, (Monday 7/29/24). My wife said the look on my face was like a kid opening presents on Christmas day. I took the rims out to my garage and tried them on the truck just to make sure the issue was solved. They all fit perfectly with plenty of clearance for the disc caliper. Today I’m a happy camper!

Now to find a competent installer to get my tires on!