Don't ya understand? I wants me a tire!

[Syriilord]

Food that talks is not food!

Clearly you've never eaten at the restaurant at the end of the universe

Wait, you mean to tell me that repeating one's demands again and again DOESN'T change the fact that the demand is in no way, shape or form possible? WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was Einstein who said "Insanity is doing the exact same thing in the exact same way and expecting a different result". Clearly this is proof of that.

[Shalom]

I tried, then my boyfriend tried, and neither of us could get the lugs to turn. The tow driver looked at us like we were idiots... until he couldn't get them to move, either. It took all three of us, working in tandem, to loosen each one. >_<

Had that happen once. We solved it by slipping the bumper jack (which had a hollow shaft) over the flat end of the wrench, in effect giving us four more feet of leverage. Still had to stand on the damn thing. Who tightened that, a gorilla?

This was a '76 Impala. Then it happened again on my dad's '81 Olds. I went right out there, confident and cocky, only to find that in the intervening five years, they'd gone to a solid shaft on the jack. Oops...

and this is one of the reason I carry at least 2 CANS of any brand of Fix-A-Flat. this stuff will at least get me somewhere UNLESS if picked up a 1/2 inch bolt thru the thread.

When there's a hole blown through the sidewall that you could stick your fist in, Fix-A-Flat ain't gonna help... Still not sure how that happened. I think I was running it underinflated for too long and it overheated. It was making a whining noise for a few minutes before the bang.

[Andara Bledin]

Had that happen once. We solved it by slipping the bumper jack (which had a hollow shaft) over the flat end of the wrench, in effect giving us four more feet of leverage. Still had to stand on the damn thing. Who tightened that, a gorilla?

We had a cross-tree jack. The tow driver held one side and pulled up (he was built like a gorilla) and I stood on the other side and bounced, while the boyfriend held the end to keep it straight on the lugs. We actually went back to a couple of them because they weren't loosening and we were afraid the welds on the crosstree were going to fail. >_>

As for who put it on, some shitty auto shop guy who doesn't know shit about not using the pneumatic wrench to put lugs on. You're supposed to hand tighten those things.

As an aside, I keep saying lugs and not lug nuts because on the Jetta, you were removing the actual bolts. That made putting tires on a real bitch, since you had to rest the rim on the hub and try to line up the holes and then lift the tire a bit to get the first lug to go through. >_<

^-.-^

[protege]

When there's a hole blown through the sidewall that you could stick your fist in, Fix-A-Flat ain't gonna help... Still not sure how that happened. I think I was running it underinflated for too long and it overheated. It was making a whining noise for a few minutes before the bang.

It could have been an old tire. Rubber suffers from dry rot over time...which can lead to the tire suddenly blowing out. I came close when I had the MG out back in 2010. I knew that the tires were old...but I didn't realize that they dated from 1977 Those things (Michelins) were well past their sell-by date (tires were a bit grubby so the stamped-on date was hidden), and I'd been *extremely* lucky that I didn't have an accident--when I was putting the car away later, I noticed that several tires had bulges in the sidewalls Those could have let go at any time, and I could have been seriously injured. Needless to say, a new set was promptly ordered and fitted after I'd had the rims cleaned up. Even the spare (which ran an *original* Dunlop!) got a new tire.

[Captain Trips]

-What?! You can't just take a tire off one of the wrecks you got? I know you got at least one wrecked car there! Guys who drive tow trucks always have wrecked cars around!
- I do, and I'm not allowed to remove anything from them, so there's no way I can do that either.

I am so glad to hear that. One time I was in a wreck (car was totaled) and got a mild case of whiplash. By the time we were able to go to get the car out of the tow yard (long story behind THAT) I noticed that the spare tire was missing. Seems they took it from my car when someone called in with the exact same call - "Bring me a tire."

Now, these people weren't as ethical as Argabarga - they took my spare and used it on his car. Probably charged him for it, too. (When they finally brought my car home, they had replaced the spare - on threat from the AAA, which is part of the "longer story.")

The longer story:
When they came to tow my car, they gave me some story about "we can't tow it to your home tonight, we're too busy - we'll get it there tomorrow." I then went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with mild whiplash. Was stuck in bed for a few days, then other things piled up. We didn't contact the tow yard for a month, when they told us "Yeah, give us $1100.00 in storage fees and we'll deliver it."
I got on the phone with the AAA, explained the situation to them, they agreed that it was what they call an "interrupted tow" and I would only have to pay their standard "over 7 miles" rate - and no storage fees, as it was the tow yards choice to store it and not tow. Shortly thereafter, the tow yard called and said they were delivering it. I got my $70 check ready for them.
When they guy delivered it, before he dropped the car he asked me for their normal towing fee for that distance - several hundred dollars. I had him get on the radio, and as soon as he heard "Bob" say "It IS an Auto Club tow" he took my $70, dropped the car, and took off.

Note to self: avoid 5-Star Towing in Escondido California.

[Blue Ginger]

[QUOTE=As for who put it on, some shitty auto shop guy who doesn't know shit about not using the pneumatic wrench to put lugs on. You're supposed to hand tighten those things.[/QUOTE]

My mum always takes my car to have anything done to it. She has been known to insist on seeing the tyre people tighten the bolts by hand.

She got done by a new tyre place doing them up with the pneumatic drill. Like some other people, not even the roadside assist guy could get them undone.

Considering the puncture happened 3 days after getting new tires, the person remembered her and the car. Well he will always remember her now, especially after she tore strips off him. She then made him remove all the tires and do it all by hand.

[Captain Trips]

I've found that the problem with pneumatic wrenches isn't that they over tighten the lug nut, it's that the damned things make it too easy to cross-thread them! (With no feedback, the mechanic doesn't know he cross-threaded the nut.) I've had too many lugs get broken trying to remove the nut. Now I ALWAYS watch when they put my tires on the car - and if they so much as reach for the air-wrench, I yell, "HEY! Hand-tighten only, it's written on the order!"

(These days, most shops will only hand-tighten, using a torque wrench at that so they KNOW they didn't over-tighten.)

[Docmayhem]

I've had the opposite problem - I pulled off of I-95 for a different issue and realized that half of my lug nuts weren't even finger tight about a week after I had the car inspected.

[Andara Bledin]

My now-ex did that, once. I'm driving to work, about five miles away, and the care is handling something awful... Got out and checked, and two of the nuts had come off because my excessively lazy then-hubby hadn't bothered to actually, you know, tighten them at all when he'd changed the tire the night before. >_<

This was the same car that later had it's engine sieze because the last time I'd had him check the oil, he'd gone out, had a cigarette, then lied about having done it. Then he tried to blame me because I had been the one driving it at the time.

Needless to say, neither of those went over well at all. Those weren't the reasons we're no longer together, but they were symptoms of the greater issues.

^-.-^

[Kogarashi]

when I was putting the car away later, I noticed that several tires had bulges in the sidewalls Those could have let go at any time, and I could have been seriously injured.

That was probably our scariest flat that we changed.

I mentioned three before. One happened because we parked our car in my parents' yard when attending a sister's graduation party, and found out later that we'd apparently driven over a piece of metal (not sure from where, but I suspect it was debris in the yard from an old junk heap the previous owners had), and it had gotten stuck in the treads of one tire and let all the air out. Got that one fixed easily enough.

Second was while driving up to Boston from our city (a two-hour drive), when we suddenly heard what sounded like a helicopter following us closely, accompanied by a little odd handling in the vehicle. We pulled over on the side of a nice, long off-ramp (mostly for safety, since there were far fewer cars whizzing by), and realized that helicopter noise was the sound of a flat thumping underneath the Jeep.

But the third...that was the one that hadn't actually gone flat yet, but clearly was about to blow. We were again heading to Boston, just this past spring, when the car started handling really oddly and listing. Hubby got off the highway and pulled into a conveniently placed gas station, got out to check the tire, and then called me out to see it.

There were bulges in several places, as well as wires sticking out all over. Not wires that punctured the tire, no. Wires from inside the tire. The thing seriously looked ready to explode at any moment. I'm just glad it didn't blow while we were driving. I suspect at least some of the damage can be blamed on the city and it's less-than-stellar record of clearing out all our excess snow this winter.

See, we got dumped on a whole lot this winter. Every now and then, the city would send out city-wide notices telling people to park off the streets because the DPW would be coming through and scraping out the excess snow. Sure, some of the downtown residential areas got the cleanout, but not those of us on the northern end of the city, which included the most affluent areas and a large portion of the University's graduate students. Instead, the snow was allowed to pile up to the point where the only way certain streets were still two-way was if both cars were literally hugging the snowbanks on their side of the street. Meaning there were quite a few times the later-bulging tire was scraping snow because I had to drive down a given street and if I hadn't scraped the snowbank, I would've hit the oncoming traffic. A lot of damage to the tire was to the outer wall, right where it would've been scraping repeatedly-frozen snow. I can't prove it, though.

For those wondering, no, the city never got around to scraping out our side of town. Eventually spring came along and did their job for them.

[Andara Bledin]

I've had the 'helicopter noise with funky handling' myself. Doing 70 on the freeway in on old Ford Econoline van with iffy handling to start with, and suddenly I hear this awful thwapping noise, the whole van is shaking, and the handling's gotten worse.

We get out and look, and we find a huge 8-inch section of the steel belt has peeled away from the tire. >_< So we limped home (only about 3 miles) and let the owner of said vehicle deal with it.

^-.-^

[Jetfire]

First story:

Moving to Ottawa from California. We had a rental UHaul, towing one vehicle, while the other vehicle was being driven (4 of us, 3 coworkers and the wife of a coworker).

We were somewhere along I-80, in the flyover states, well into the plains. I was playing a video game while we rolled along, when suddenly the power started dieing. We limped along as best we could, then called support. This was about 4pm on a Saturday. A local UHaul rep came out, confirmed we had a dead alternator, and he had to call and get one sent out from <big city>'s UHaul dealer/garage. Luckily <big City> did have one and was able to get it out, but it was close; the place closed at 5.

We had dinner at a place in the village that the dealer came from, they fixed up the Alternator and we were on the road again without too much trouble.

Second story:
It was just after Easter. I was driving back to Ottawa from visiting my parents, and had just gotten the summer tires put on the car. I was on Highway 20, around Montmagony, Quebec, in the fast line and just going along smoothly.

Suddenly, the road noise increased a lot, and handling got bad. I didn't even stop to think; I pulled over to the shoulder (which in this case was the left hand shoulder) and stopped.

The front passenger tire was effectively GONE. Not even scraps left.

Luckily for me, I was there for barely 5 minutes, still trying to figure out what to do next (trying to find the tire change kit in the trunk and talking to dad on the cellphone) when the Quebec highway services stopped and gave me a hand. No charges, just some friendly folks whose job it was to do what they were doing for me I'm sure. (Hard to be positive with my pidgen french and their rough english but we made due).

They got my spare on for me, and I was able to get to the Canadian Tire in Montmagony, about 30 minutes before their garage closed. They were able to get me in, put two new tires on for me and I was on my way again. Best we can figure, the tire that popped was a plugged tire and it had finally given up the ghost on the highway.

In both cases though, we were really appreciative of the help we received, and the lengths the people involved went through to help us out. (both on the highway and in the garages). And yes, if it had so happened that nothing could have been done until the next day, we were fully prepared to accept that and handle that.

Hell, in the first story, we were even mentally preparing ourselves to unpack the 45ft UHaul into another one if needed. (It had 3 apartments worth of stuff in it). Luckily it didn't come that far, but we were ready to do that if needed.

[protege]

That was probably our scariest flat that we changed.

Mine too. I've never let my tires get that bad. In fact, I had no idea just how old those tires really were. It was only after I'd jacked up the car (axle stands are a must), and removed them. Otherwise, I had no idea that the car never saw a new set. Sadly, the car would stay on axle stands an entire *year* while I worked on other projects. Dad's cancer, his auto accident (some assclown ran a stop sign and drove head-on into his Hyundai ), Grandma's stroke...and her eventual death...kinda got in the way. I was more concerned about them than my car. But, Dad soon got better, and insisted that I work on "that damn car" again

The only good thing about those tires being so old, is that they formed a *perfect* seal against the rims. When I had them removed, the rims were nearly perfect underneath. The only rust was on the backs and around the lug nuts! Had all 5 rims repainted, fitted with new tires (Tirerack.com is freaking awesome!) at a local shop, and all is good

[kpzra]

Scariest tire change I've ever done was when we moved to Alaska. We had just crossed into the state, after remarking about the large bear we had just seen, when the rear passenger tire blew out. We were towing an 18 foot trailer with everything we owned on it to boot. Now, this was mid April, about 730ish at night, or dusk. We notice some rustling in the woods on the side we were stopped on, the side the bear had crossed to not 5 minutes before, not 20 feet down the road. Quickest tire change I've ever done, we didn't even unhook the trailer at that point...thank goodness we always use at least 10 ton bottle jacks.

[BeeMused]

I was starting to feel sleepy and I was still over 100 miles away from home. Eventually, I pulled into one of the service plazas on the turnpike, turned the car off, and took a nap.

Very smart move, way to many accidents happen because the driver momentary nodded off.

I did the same thing once. It was 3am and I still had to drive 2 hours, but I was so sleepy. I made it to the next rest stop and went ZzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzz in the car. Only to be woken at dawn by 2 friendly policemen, who commended me after I told my story.