"Brother, Can You Spare A Tire?" by Troy H. Cheek on Jul 27, 2009
I was driving down the road the other day, when suddenly I heard this:
Screech! Wham! Clunk! Whap whap whap whap! Hissssssss!
Or, at least, that's what both my brothers swore I must have heard. Or something similar. They had different sound effects and differing opinions about when it might have happened. They were both in agreement. however, that I couldn't possibly have done that much damage to a tire without being aware of it.
I, on the other hand, don't remember driving over anything remarkable. I just noticed a month or two back that the right rear tire looked a little low. I added some air. A week or so later, it seemed a little low, so I added some more.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Eventually, it reached the point where I decided that getting the tire fixed would be less irritating than putting air in it every week. I made plans to drive down to the place where I'd bought the tires, the local "Town Tire Tenter" franchise, to see what they could do with it.
Yes, it's supposed to be Town Tire Center, but apparently they got a bulk deal on the letter T when they were ordering the signs.
When the day I'd planned for arrived, my youngest nephew approached me. He wanted me to ride into town with him and a few other family members.
Troy: "Sorry, buddy. I can't today. I have to go get this leaky tire fixed."
Nephew: "Why don't you just fix it yourself? You've told me you know how."
Troy: "I do indeed know how. Unfortunately, I don't have the equipment. I need a plug kit."
Nephew: "We have a plug kit down in our basement. I know exactly where it is. It's right by the door when you come in on your left. I'll help you fix the tire when we get back."
Troy: "Well, okay..."
When we got back, I pulled the truck around to the basement. Naturally, the leak was on the inner side of the tire, so I had to take the whole wheel off to get to it. The source of the leak turned out to be a long nail which had poked through the tread and had even bowed out the sidewall a bit. Once removed, the tire began deflating rapidly. I scurried to clean it off and ready it for plugging. It's a lot harder to plug a floppy tire.
Nephew: "Here's the kit, Uncle Troy."
Troy: "Thank you. Hmm. These are the plugs. Where's the tool that goes with them?"
Nephew: "What do you mean?"
Troy: "These are the little rubber strips that go in the hole. There's a special little tool, kind of like a screwdriver with a hole in the end, that you use to put the rubber strips in the hole."
Nephew: "Oh. I didn't know. This is what I was talking about."
Troy: "I see. In that case, hand me that nail. I've got to put it back in."
Fortunately, my youngest brother showed up about then and had the poor timing to ask me what I was doing. I explained that, thanks to his son, I'd missed the opportunity to get out to the Town Tire Tenter while they were still open and now had a flat that I couldn't fix. He assured me that he had a plug tool out in his truck. Or, failing that, some other tool which would work just as well.
Two hours later, after having tried a screwdriver, punch, awl, and a coat hanger, we ended up grinding a slot into the end of a steel rod and using that to force the plug into the hole. I wasn't pretty, but when we poured water over it, it didn't bubble. That was good enough for me.
A week later, I noticed that the tire was low again. In fact, it was about as low as it had been getting before, meaning that it was leaking at about the same rate. I made plans to run out to the Town Tire Tenter the very next day.
One week later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Town Tire Tenter. As usual, I peeled the little sticky label off the windshield and brought it in with me. I then proceeded to have the usual argument with the salesdrone about how I wasn't in the computer and couldn't have possibly bought my tires at this store and therefore didn't qualify for free lifetime tire rotation. And yet I have this little sticker reminding me that my next tire rotation should be on or about this date and after this many miles. I asked them to plug the leak while they had the wheels off anyway. I was asked to take a seat and assured this would just take a few minutes.
Two hours later, the salesdrone told me the tire specialist wanted to see me in Bay 2.
The tire specialist, aka the guy who knew which holes not to stick the air hose into, showed me my tire.
Specialist: "This thing must have made a hell of a racket when you knocked that chunk of rubber out. What did it sound like?"
Troy: "We've already done that joke. What's the news?"
Specialist: "We couldn't locate the leak, but the tire failed the pressure test, so we figured it was that plug you put in. Looked like it was jammed in there with a coat hanger or something."
Troy: "Or something. Go on."
Specialist: "We drilled out the plug and put in a fresh one. It still wouldn't hold pressure."
Troy: "I see. Then what?"
Specialist: "We popped the tire off the rim and applied a patch to the inside. It still wouldn't hold the pressure."
Troy: "And then?"
Specialist: "We popped the tire off again, noticed where the sidewall was bowed out a bit, and put a patch on the inside there. It still wouldn't pass the pressure test."
Troy: "And the moral of the story is?"
Specialist: "We finally gave up, smeared rubber cement all over everything, and put a tube in that tire."
Troy: "And that fixed the leak?"
Specialist: "Well, we aired it up to double pressure and couldn't force a leak. Usually, they either leak or blow. I can't promise you that it'll hold up. It may be flat in an hour, or you might drive it bald. Just can't tell."
Troy: "Bottom line. Can I go now?"
Specialist: "Well, I wouldn't let my mother drive on a tire like that. You'd be much better off buying a new tire. Or a new set if these are approaching the end of their lives. Let's crunch some numbers..."
The numbers told me what I'd already suspected. That is, that the tires were about halfway through their expected life. It was too early to toss the tires and buy a new set. It was too late to buy one new tire to add to the mix. If I bought two tires so as to at least have a matching set on the front or back, I wouldn't be buying a set of four and wouldn't qualify for free lifetime rotation.
I had them put the tire back on. I ended up paying $12 for the patching efforts and $15 for the inner tube. I didn't know that you could even buy tubes for modern passenger vehicle tires anymore. I thought everything went tubeless years ago. If I'd had known that you could put a tube inside the tubeless tires, I'd have bought at least two fewer sets over the years.
So far, the tire has held up well. In fact, since I'm not sure that they ever got around to that tire rotation, it's held up well enough that I'm not sure which one has the tube in it.
Time will, as they say, tell.
