Well I'm glad to read the replies so far indicate I'm not crazy for expecting Thrifty to have handled this much better. I know some customers can be obnoxiuos in their expectations of service but I believe I had done nothing and just asked for a reasonable response ( a working car) from Thrifty.

I will make one alteration to my story, upon refelection I think its more like 7-8 miles from Thrifty to The Orleans instead of the 4-5 I posted. So divide 32,000+ miles on the odometer when I rented this beast by 8 to figure out how much of the milege I was responsible for on this $20 tire.

By the way, I know what a Hyundai tire costs because I once owned one. just after college I was poor and needed a car. i had a chance to buy a low milege Hyundai for $800 that was worth about $2700. I had the car for about 3 years and had virtually no problems with it, Hyundai's bad reputation aside.