This past Tuesday, I came downstairs from my office to go to lunch and I was horrified to see that my car had a flat tyre. What followed next what a comedy of errors because I was so scatterbrained. I got the jack out, but I couldn’t find the tyre iron. It was buried in a crevice behind the back seat. Then I started jacking the car up, but its a four spoke iron, and it didn’t have the clearance to turn. It never occurred to me to use the large slip joint pliers to work the jack. Then I attempted to take the wheel cover off, and I completely forgot that its held on by visible lug nuts. I was such a mess that I gave up and called AAA. For the record, I know how to change a tyre. I did it before when my Malibu lost tyre pressure whilst on the motorway many moons ago.
So AAA came and put the spare on for me, and, after feeling like an idiot, I thought I would be all right until I can get the tyre fixed. Imagine my fright when I saw that the tyre seemed a bit flat. Right away I started falling apart. But I managed to use the tyre gauge to check the pressure and it was very low. Which figures considering it was the first time I have ever used it. I didn’t want to drive on it, so I called AAA again to have the tyre aired up. It held air, and I was able to go home. But it meant driving at a slower speed because I could feel the instability of driving on such a narrow tyre.
This past Saturday, I was at the repair shop to have the tyre fixed. The bad news was that there was a hole in the sidewall. The tyre is no good. I thought as much since it looked a bit dodgy. After handing over $131, I now have a new tyre. The shop even put the spare back where it ususally goes, which is behind the back seat under the floor. Car feels a lot better now, and no more tyre noise.
In hindsight, I should have had the tyre checked out. From last year, it was always losing pressure. Every weekend I was inflating the tyre to 40 pounds to compensate. At least I found the reason for the air loss. Looks like I ran over something that became embedded in the tyre. I remember when mom had the same problem with her car, I always told her to have the tyre checked out. Didn’t even follow my own advice. Hogpefully I will know better in case this happens again. On the wish list is a proper tyre iron so I can use the jack and maybe another new tyre.
Thanks for reading my post. Namaste.
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