As I pulled out of my parking space this morning, I felt the familiar whump-whump-whump of a flat tire. I thought it was the front driver’s side tire, which has been giving me problems lately.
But I looked, and it was fine. So I pulled out of my building, and the whumping continued, and I discovered it was actually the front passenger side tire that was flat.
Having busted my jack the last time I had a flat tire, I called AAA. When the guy got the tire off (which was so flat that when he jacked the car up, the tire actually remained flat), he showed me the problem: There was an enormous nail in the tire.
So I slogged to work on the wee little donut tire, and when I got there, they said, you know what, it’s slow, go get your tire fixed so you can actually do runs today.
So I call my friend Tim, who knows cars and knows the car shops in the Valley, and he sends me to a place called Western Tire.
When I get there, I ask if they can patch the tire with the nail in it, and ask if they can look at the tire with the slooooow leak, and they say no problem.
A few minutes later, a guy walks into the waiting room, and says, “You may want to come take a look at this.” In car shops, this is not a sentence you want to hear.
So I walk over to my car, and he points at the rear passenger side tire. There’s a giant screw in it. It’s a small wonder that the car even got to the damn tire shop.
My immediate thought was, “I don’t remember driving through a hardware store on my way home last night….”
So out of the four tires on my car, only the rear driver’s side tire was not somehow losing air. And I immediately had them check that one, too. Fortunately, that one is (so far) fine.
Yet somehow, all of the patches and fixing the valve only cost me $35. I’d thought I’d end up spending a bare minimum of $100 for the two tires I knew had problems.
I owe Tim lots and lots and lots of beer for pointing me in the direction of that place. But before I get any for him, I need to go find one for me.