Wheel of Fortunate
Damage to wheel. Total cost $135+
So I've been telling a few of you out there that I was going to talk about what happened this weekend.
I left work Friday night and was going to swing by the Apple store to take a look at the new iPods. I was on the little shortcut road where they have been doing a lot of construction. The road is pretty patchy and rough around the edges, but for some reason they built a sidewalk. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I do remember thinking even though there was no one on the road I should stay on my side of the road like a good driver. And then I had an epiphany: no good deed goes unpunished.
It was actually kinda weird. Something told me I ought to get over, but I was still on the road.
I keep telling everyone that I hit a culvert, but that's doesn't make any sense. If it was a culvert, I would have expected both tires on the passenger side to be broke as well as as the car being disassembled, etc. The sudden bang startled me and my stomach went into my throat much like going down the top of a roller coaster.
The tire didn't immediately go flat, but in the 1/5 mile it took me to get to the gas station (an intermediate destination I had planned anyway--I was sitting on empty) vibration in the wheel increased 100 fold. I made it to the pump ok, but the tire was flat.
My thoughts went to a story from long ago. Tyson was catching our chickens in Snead in the middle of July. They had parked one of their trailers right in front of the chicken house, but they did so such that it was even with the edge of the house. These were 500 foot houses and there was a "road" that went between them to the halfway door which was the main entrance/exit. Dad was sick that night but he had to do the work--raise the feeders, raise the drinkers, etc.
Now it was common practice to look in one side view, line up the side of the road and floor it to back up the distance and then turn the wheel so that you could drive away from the houses--essentially a "J" starting at the top and moving down. It was also common practice to not really look once you got things lined up, after all when you're going in and out 100's of times a day, you get used to this maneuver and there typically isn't anything for you to watch out for.
Except this time.
Dad forgot about the gooseneck trailer being parked in front of the chicken house and backed right into at at 25 MPH or so. It totaled the bed of the truck which he replaced with a steel flatbed. To this day when Dad tells the story, he always includes this line, "It rattled my teeth."
Well, my adventure didn't rattle my teeth, it just cost me money.
The jack that came with the car is useless and at first I couldn't get the lugs off the tire with the little wrench that I had, so I called a tow truck. Both the places I called assured me they took credit card…while the office was open. Which it wasn't as this was after normal business hours.
I took the driver's suggestion to put the wrench at a 90 degree angle and jump up and down on it to loosen the lugs. I was trepid at first--years ago I had managed to break the bolt on the van by tighten too much with a 4-way. He came and rescued me supplying a proper two ton jack and we had the tire changed in minutes.
Wheel Fix-It came highly recommended by the driver and the tire place I usually go to. Later that weekend, I heard from a driver at Steak Out that the GM had taken her car there because of a similar incident. They were very pleasant to do business with and had me taken care of in less than four hours. I decided against bringing the camera when I went to pick up the tire, and as such I don't have an after picture for you. But I do have this picture from where I spent time with an old UAH buddy and his friends:
