Tire-changin' blues
Dec. 26th, 2009 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rickvsOkay, here's a holiday update, with an egg-on-my-face story that amused me perhaps more than it should have.
I'm typing this from my mother's house in Idaho; we're here for twelve days to sort of make up for not visiting last year :>
Ecks-mas went quite well -- Rachal and I both got loot that we wanted, and we've mostly enjoyed the company of my relatives.
One sour note is Rachal's developing bronchitis -- she'd been coughing before we even left Dallas, and it's been getting steadily colder over the last few days. The local weather (mostly freezing with a fifty-percent chance of butt-cold) also took its toll ...so she finally went to the local E.R. at about 4am this morning, where they gave her a breathing treatment and a prescription for antibiotics.
While waiting at the nearest 24-hour Walgreens, I noticed that one of the tires on my mother's VW appeared low. Not being sure whether it was just low or flat (and those tires are of such small diameter that it hadn't really been affecting my steering), I bought a can of Fix-A-Flat, and limped the car across the street to a gas station with an air compressor.
After attempting to inflate the tire several times (and having it settle immediately back down to the parking lot while hissing), I gave up on trying to salvage it, judging that the Fix-A-Flat would also be a waste of time. I gingerly drove to the grocery store next door, and asked Rachal to wait inside where it was warm. (This was still before eight a.m., and it was about five degrees below freezing).
Now, I just turned forty at the end of October, and I've lost track of how many tires I've successfully changed. Would have hoped I'd be able to do it without resorting to the manual by now, but these VWs are apparently too tricky for me.
Twice, I had to shelter myself back in the car to research what all the little widgets were that came with their onboard toolkit, before I decided that I wouldn't need the towing-eyelet-extractor, but *would* need both the tug hook (to expose the lug nuts) and the nut adapter (to have any hope of removing the one-per-tire "theft deterrent" bolt). The jack itself looked like an iPod accessory, and by the time I'd lain on the heat-sucking asphalt to position it correctly, I was not a happy camper.
When I finally got the tire off, I gave it a cursory examination as I rolled it to the trunk, but didn't see any obvious damage -- and didn't want to spend much time with it. Finally got the doughnut on (small as the VW's tires are, the spare is smaller yet!), and phoned Rachal to come on out of the store for our trip home.
As I toodled through Nampa, I noticed that the car was still driving roughly. Had I actually lost two tires, or had I perhaps not correctly attached the spare? Then I had a really nasty thought, and pulled over to confirm it.
...Yep.
I'd changed the wrong tire.
I'm typing this from my mother's house in Idaho; we're here for twelve days to sort of make up for not visiting last year :>
Ecks-mas went quite well -- Rachal and I both got loot that we wanted, and we've mostly enjoyed the company of my relatives.
One sour note is Rachal's developing bronchitis -- she'd been coughing before we even left Dallas, and it's been getting steadily colder over the last few days. The local weather (mostly freezing with a fifty-percent chance of butt-cold) also took its toll ...so she finally went to the local E.R. at about 4am this morning, where they gave her a breathing treatment and a prescription for antibiotics.
While waiting at the nearest 24-hour Walgreens, I noticed that one of the tires on my mother's VW appeared low. Not being sure whether it was just low or flat (and those tires are of such small diameter that it hadn't really been affecting my steering), I bought a can of Fix-A-Flat, and limped the car across the street to a gas station with an air compressor.
After attempting to inflate the tire several times (and having it settle immediately back down to the parking lot while hissing), I gave up on trying to salvage it, judging that the Fix-A-Flat would also be a waste of time. I gingerly drove to the grocery store next door, and asked Rachal to wait inside where it was warm. (This was still before eight a.m., and it was about five degrees below freezing).
Now, I just turned forty at the end of October, and I've lost track of how many tires I've successfully changed. Would have hoped I'd be able to do it without resorting to the manual by now, but these VWs are apparently too tricky for me.
Twice, I had to shelter myself back in the car to research what all the little widgets were that came with their onboard toolkit, before I decided that I wouldn't need the towing-eyelet-extractor, but *would* need both the tug hook (to expose the lug nuts) and the nut adapter (to have any hope of removing the one-per-tire "theft deterrent" bolt). The jack itself looked like an iPod accessory, and by the time I'd lain on the heat-sucking asphalt to position it correctly, I was not a happy camper.
When I finally got the tire off, I gave it a cursory examination as I rolled it to the trunk, but didn't see any obvious damage -- and didn't want to spend much time with it. Finally got the doughnut on (small as the VW's tires are, the spare is smaller yet!), and phoned Rachal to come on out of the store for our trip home.
As I toodled through Nampa, I noticed that the car was still driving roughly. Had I actually lost two tires, or had I perhaps not correctly attached the spare? Then I had a really nasty thought, and pulled over to confirm it.
...Yep.
I'd changed the wrong tire.
