Flat Tire Experience

Last Thursday was brutal. A cold front moved in and when we woke up to go swim it was 32 degrees below zero. Our pickup was plugged in during the night and it started up in the morning.

On our way to the pool the tires felt funny and the hubby told me that it felt like we had a flat tire. Sure enough, when he pulled over the front drivers side tire was flat. Funny how the sensor in the tire didn't pick that up. We had only left our driveway so just had to turn around and head back home to get my car.

My car wouldn't start. It doesn't have a head bolt heater, so I have no way to plug it in when we get these sub zero temperatures. Great, now we have to change a flat tire. We have a very small air compressor, so we tried to air up the tire first. No deal, the compressor is not big enough to that kind of job. It's ok when the tire is low, but not when it is flat.

Got into the house to layer up. Nothing like changing a tire at 6:00 am, 32 below zero. My job was to hold the flashlight. Why doesn't this happen when it is 50 degrees above zero. Needless to say we had a hard time getting the jack out of the truck. They just don't put those things inside, no the jack was anchored down and we had to figure out how to get it out. Managed that.

Got the jack under the truck and cranked up. Now we have to get the spare tire out from under the truck. You need to use the handle on the jack to get the tire lowered. My job was to lower the spare down and Gary would get it unhooked.

We managed that fine, but by this time I am so cold that I am shivering. Remember my job was to hold the flashlight, and soon it looked like a strobe. I was shivering so much that the light was everywhere but on the tire. Gary managed to get the lugs off, so in the house we went to warm up.

My glasses froze over and I couldn't see a thing. I tried wearing them outside again one they warmed up but the just froze over again. I finally gave up on the glasses and took them off, so what if things are fuzzy. Once we warmed up had to head back out to put on the spare tire. I didn't really want to go back outside again.

The tire got put on right the first time, everything lined up perfect, got the lugs on and we were so happy. My fingers and toes got cold and when they started to warm up it sure hurt. Gary was hurting too, his toes and fingers.

Took the tire to the local tire shop and they aired it up and couldn't find anything wrong with the tire. Told me to bring it back the next day to check it out. Didn't want to put it back on in case it went flag again. Sure enough the next morning that tire was flat. The tire guy couldn't figure it out, but he was so busy on Friday that he kept the tire again overnight. Took it apart to see if he could find something.

Saturday morning we went back to the tire shop and this time air stayed in it. Since the spare was the same tire at the others we just kept it on and not the original tire is now the spare. The original spare tire doesn't have a sensor in it, so our tire light stays on all the time, but the sensor never did work right anyway.

The sensor would light up and then we would put air in the tire, but when the stupid things goes flat, no indicator light on.

The good news was my car did start up on Thursday evening after work. When it warmed up to 20 below zero. We made sure that we ran it good and just before going to bed ran it again. It took two days to warm up. Now that we are above freezing we will never have a flat tire again.