I'm not sure. I was one of those poor fools who'd never won anything. Always watched friends and strangers pick off the goodies. Then a couple of years ago my name was called. I got a certificate for 4 tires for my Jeep, any size I wanted. So I called the number, read my certificate to they guy, and he wanted my serial number. He said he'd "mail" them to me... uh oh.
But a week later I came home from work and UPS had tossed them on the front yard!
Of course anyone could have stolen them and I'd have never known they'd been delivered. Regardless, I'd finally won something of value. Besides, the ones I was running were getting thin for my uses. Dick was a happy camper.
Then this spring, I got a phone call from a girl (I like phone calls from girls.) She was a friends daughter, and she said the Jeep Club I belong to in Utah had pulled my name out for a new set of Goodyear tires!
Life is good.
So when I went down to the tire store out there to have them mounted, a funny thing happened. They weren't the new tread design Goodyear was introducing, they were the old design. Who cares? Free is free, and free is good. Then on Good Friday, at the main vendors event at the Jeep Safari, I wandered into the Goodyear booth to thank them (its only decent.) I waited patiently until the 2 guys BSing stopped for a breath. I asked them when anyone from management would get there. One guy looked at his shirt, looked around, and said "me." OK. So I thanked him profusely for their generosity, but wanted to ask a question.
He was a decent guy with a nice smile, and he said "what?" So I asked if there was a reason my tread design was different from everyone elses, mine being the old style. Of course he replied "no way, they're all the new design." So I said, thats what they should be, I guess, and I'm happy with them. He said "no way, where's your jeep parked." (illegally, of course, where it shouldn't be.) But we walked over to look at it. He instantly said "how'd you get those?" My response was "I won them from you."
He said no way, you're getting new ones. Then he handed me his business card and told me to email him first thing when I got home. Yep, last Tuesday I had to meet a truck with 4 of them for me. I've emailed him a couple of times, thanking him profusely for the tires and asking him what to do with the "old style" tires. No response. If history is a guide, they won't bother to respond, and I' stuck with the 4 tires that have 1700 miles on them, as well as the new ones, and the ones from a couple of years ago with 7000 on them.
Tire life expectancy on a Jeep driven in rock, probably 30,000 miles. Life expectancy of Dick, less than the 80,000+ they'll probably be good for. Life's tough. But I've somehow got to muddle thru it.