My yearly sickness and another flat tire

Well, I had been wondering when my once-a-year sickness would come around. Funny, I never thought it would be during the summer months. Usually, it's during spring or winter, when the weather is changing. But my sinuses are crazy and it's causing my throat to hurt and my ears to clog up. I took some pills last night, which seemed to have helped, but they're making me a little ill this morning, since I haven't had anything to eat since dinner last night. Yup, just those two pills and some mucous sloshing around in my stomach. Not too good.

Speaking of dinner last night, we hit the ole' Quizno's again last night and took advantage of the coupon deal once again. And while we were sitting there enjoying our yummy inexpensive meal, I noticed that my rear passenger tire looked a little low. The more I looked at it, the more curious I became. We left Quizno's and headed accross the street to Pier One. My curiosity was killing me. I grabbed my tire pressure gauge and went back to check the pressure. As I leaned down to take the valve cap off, I noticed something strange about my tire: a large drywall screw sticking out of the middle of the tire!! This would make 2 (count them: one, two) drywall screws in our tires in the past month or so.

I was a little aprehensive about driving home on my damaged tire, so Olivia assisted me with yet another parking lot tire change. She lowered the full-sized spare from under the bed while I loosned the lugs on damaged wheel. We put the spare on, and then went in Barnes & Noble to browse their books.

I woke up this morning feeling as crappy as ever. Last night was the longest, hottest, sweatiest night I've had in a long time.

With the damaged tire in the back of my truck, I left a little early for work wit the intention of stopping somewhere to drop off my tire to be replaced. My philosophy on damaged tires is that if you've got a damaged tire, don't waste your time patching and/or plugging it. Because what you're doing is just causing yourself more headache. It's likely that a patched tire will leak and/or blow out before you're done with it.

My first stop was VA Center GoodYear. I knew that Firestone doesn't carry BFGoodrich tires, so I didn't even bother. The GoodYear guy told me that he could order me a tire, but it might take a week to get in. No thanks.

My second stop was Merchant's Tire. The guy in there couldn't find any mention of a BFGoodrich tire called the Rugged Trail A/T. He could find the Long Trail A/T, but that was a completely different tire, and I didn't want that. He suggested that I try going to one of the Toyota dealerships. He figured that maybe the Rugged Trail tire was something that was used only in OEM situations.

So, I headed over to Mechanicsville Toyota. I went in and told the service guy my predicament. He seemed very confused. It wasn't until I spelled it out a second time that he finally understood that I had the wheel and tire OFF of the truck and just wannted them to mount/balance a new tire for me. He still seemed confused, so I asked him if this was a strange request. he said that it was a strange request because they don't have a tire shop there at their location. When they have tire work that needs to be done, they send it off-site to a tire specialty shop. I finally got him to agree that I'd be smarter to take it to a tire shop myself instead of letting them to it and jack the price way up. He pointed accross the street to Schmigal GoodYear (can't remember the real name) and said that they could probably order it for me. Yay, another GoodYear.

Stop #4: Schwazilee Good Year. When I asked the guy if they carried BFGoodrich tires, he said that they don't stock them, but that he could have one in by the end of the day. "Can you have it in and mounted and balanced on my wheel by the end of the day?" "Yep." Ok, sold. $126 for the tire and then another $14 or so for mounting, balancing, and labor. So, I'm looking at around $140 to replace my tire. Owch. Thanks, Ryan Homes. You're the best.

Posted by Jeff at July 8, 2003 12:15 PM