February 02, 2007
Flat tires in the cold.
Do you know what sucks? A flat tire on your way to work sucks. It’s worse when you have your wife and two kids with you when it goes flat. Fortunately we were only 6 blocks from home when the tire blew, so we were able to limp home and switch vehicles. No time to change the tire, I had to get to work. It would have to wait until I got home.
That’s what happened to me yesterday. Last night when I got home I changed into some rugged cold weather gear and headed out to change the tire on the van. People let me tell you something, changing a tire sucks, changing a tire when it’s 15 degrees with a wind chill that makes it feel like 5 degrees sucks even more. The metal of the jack, the irons and the tire is almost excruciatingly cold through the heavily insulated gloves. Want to make it even worse? It had snowed the night before, it was only a couple of inches, but that meant that I had to work in the snow. We have a narrow driveway and I ended up having to shovel and dig out a section so I could get the damn jack under the farking van. Then I had the pleasure of lying in the snow to crank the beast up.
When it’s that cold do you know what happens to your tires after they are flat? They freeze. It was frozen to the driveway. As I was jacking up the farking van the tire was slowing peeling off of the driveway. It only took me about 30 minutes to make the change. 15 minutes of that was trying to get he damn spare loose from the van. It’s stored under the vehicle, and hadn’t been used in 3.5 years. The damn spare rusted to the farking bracket that was holding it to the van. So the farking gobshite that decided that storing the spare under the vehicle has a kick to the dinglies coming from me if I ever meet him.
After getting the wheels changed, I was able to go sink a couple of hundred dollars into getting two replacement tires. You can’t just buy one new tire, the vehicle won’t ride right. Well I guess it could be worse. It could have happened today, when it’s 7 degrees with a –7 wind chill.
I feel for ya, but I'm glad it wasn't me. Trying to work in the cold wind sucks ass.
Posted by: T1G at February 2, 2007 08:23 PMBeen there, done that, agree that it sucks ass.
Given my experience I can honestly say that being threatened by coyotes while changing a tire sucks magnitudes less than changing one in freezing ass weather.
Posted by: Graumagus at February 3, 2007 12:00 AMMy worst fear. Seriously. Yick.
Posted by: Tammi at February 3, 2007 07:38 AMPlease mark the time and date ...
Contagion was complaining about coldness of the outside.
This has to be a historic moment.
Posted by: Quality Weenie at February 3, 2007 09:21 AMAll I can say is at least you lucked out and where able to do it at home. Most of us get to do this in this weather while snow-blinded semis zoom past at a distance of about three feet.
Posted by: Shadoglare at February 3, 2007 09:49 AMI had the 'pleasure' of doing this on my way to work before, while it was snowing and the plows were out.
Let me just say that it sucked ass, and if given the chance I would have probally hit a snowplow driver in the head with a tire iron.
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Posted by: tmpmj at February 24, 2010 09:32 AM
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