The Proper A Tire For The Ride
For those who know me know I drive an old car. By old I mean a 2007 Toyota Corolla with over 299,999+ miles on it. I write + because the odometer stopped working (by design) at that number two years ago this July (happy anniversary, odometer, I hardly knew ye).
Being an old car I do my best to keep it on the road. Two weeks ago I bought four brand new tires, and replaced the muffler, so I was good to go for now.
Didn’t realize just how short ‘for now’ was going to be.
Last week I hit the highway, but this time the highway hit back.
Approached the exit for Somerville on 287 when I felt and heard a thump. I looked at the highway, but didn’t see anything, either a head of me or behind. On the exit ramp the car started to rumble, and fortunately I was right by a strip mall so landed there.
My two-week-old tire on the back passenger side was flat. I called Triple-A and they gave me a forty-five minute window when they would arrive. In the mean time I dug the donut spare tire out of my over-crowded trunk. As I did that, several cars passed me in the deserted parking lot, and not one thought to asked if I needed help. Granted, in the age of cell phones, most people have help on the way, but still would have been nice to be asked (like prom).
People just don’t care.
Not a minute later, I was proven wrong.
A very large car carrier pulled in front of my car, a woman behind the wheel and a man beside her (found out later husband and wife).
The man jumps out of the cab and shouts he could change my tire for free, no charge.
“You Triple A?” I asked.
“No,” he talked as he walked, “we saw you from the highway and couldn’t just leave you here if we could help.”
Just like that, faith in humanity restored (for now).
He changed my tire, and warned me that the donut spare was not in good shape. I assured him I only had to go a few miles to my mechanic, and I would be fine.
I was not.
I made it to the mechanic, but the amount of prays I threw out over the noises and bumps coming from the back of my car were biblical.
Thankfully, when it comes to cars, I always say, ‘I got a guy’, and boy did he save the day.
When I pulled into his shop, he was very busy, but listened to my story, removed that flat to see if he could repair it.
He could not.
Apparently I did not drive over a nail, but a spike the width of a finger, so a plug, not even a patch, would work.
“Can I just buy a tire?” I asked, desperate.
He doesn’t sell tires from the garage, he orders them to be delivered the next day.
“Do you have an extra donut spare tire in the garage?”
No, and the one I drove in on would never make it out of the parking lot.
The my guy said, “Hold on,” and disappeared into the back of the garage.
If you remember, I wrote that these tires were two weeks old. In New Jersey (and probably other states) you pay a fee when you buy new tires to ‘dispose’ of the old ones.
Well, fortunately for me, my old tires had not yet been disposed of, so one of them found itself back to work on my car.
The next day I returned to have a new tire put on my car (with a new rim) and kept the old tire that was on my car as a spare (no more donut!)
After a shaky twenty-four-hours my car was back on the road, good as new (sort of).
Bottom line, it’s as simple as this...
...my car doesn’t want to die, and I’m not about to be the one who kills it.
