Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Damnest thing happened

As my Great Gramps used to say, “I been to 3 windmill pullin’s and a Mongolian barbecue and I ain’t never seen nothing like that”.

Had to take my truck the 30 miles to a buddy’s body shop to drop it off this evening. Had the wife follow me in her old beater VW wagon to carry me home.

We get 4 miles from town and she blows a tire. I swap it out in about 5 minutes no biggie. Old tire had spent its 6 year life out in the OK sunshine and was a little cracked I figured it was just it’s time to go.

Get a mile from our destination and she blows the brand new, never on the pavement, stored inside the car, full-size spare. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I get to looking and notice on it as well as the first one the end with the threads are missing from the valve stem. Closer inspection shows the little rubber trim piece that follows the outside of the wheel well is hanging loose. I get to looking a little harder and see that the end of that little 1/4” round rubber trim will just reach the valve stem.

She’d bumped a pole pulling into the yard a while back, situation normal she’s forever bumping this or that, and knocked the trim loose. Just buzzing around town at 25mph I guess it didn’t generate enough wheel speed to break the valve stem, or not enough wind resistance to push the little trim piece back into contact with it. But out on the highway it was the perfect storm of stupid. 😁
Didn’t really blow them, they just went flat all at once and got ruined running flat on the pavement before she could pull over. At any rate both sidewalls are ragged.

So I called dad and he rounded up every little 5 hole spare we had between us along with a “universal” 10 hole my mother in law has. He brought them up to us and wouldn’t you know. No dice, not one of the 4 would fit, either lug pattern or caliper clearance, we could have one but never the other.

Body shop bud got to be the hero when he found the smallest donut spare I’ve ever seen, think Honda Trail 50 size. But it held air and we made our way to the homestead at 45mph.

I could just leave it and start hitting up the local Powwows but I guess I’ll borrow the old man’s rig in the morning and go buy 2 new tires.
Never a dull moment when you lead a life of adventure!

Heck, I'd be really adventurous and, buy 4 new tires; take one of the older ones that still holds air and make it your spare.

Then, have lunch with your sweetie.

Hey, take care. Glad no one was hurt with your tire issues.

Take care.

Damnedest thing 2.0... On a road trip to Detroit about a dozen yrs back my brother and i ran into freezing rain/sleet just outside the motor city... When we slowed down due to road conditions for a few miles, we noticed a strange sound... something like pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft and it felt like a tire was going flat on the right side... I crawled halfway out the pass side window at about 35 mph and seen the R/R tire was almost flat... And an ice ball (golf ball size) had formed on the end of the extra long valve stem and was whipping the stem back & forth letting a pfft of air out each time it whipped... The other 3 wheels had normal length valve stems and were OK... WTF?, What can go Wrong, Will go Wrong!... If the Asshat that put that long stem in would have been there, i think we mighta' tied em to the car & dragged him...

Stop being a cheap ass go buy 4 new tires..

After plenty of miles, I had the original front tires of one of
my trucks go flat within ten miles of each other. They were
identical. We were out on the road, rural. A small town
Constable stopped to check on us and called a local tow.truck.
(this was before portable phones) Small town Saturday night late.
He shot me a reasonable price on tires, so I had him replace all four.
The whole adventure cost me a couple of hours, still better than the
usual wait at a tire big tire store.

Women and tires on their car... what could possibly go wrong?

I have had the exact same tires on my car, as my wife has... Mileage wise I somehow get twice to three times of the miles out of a set of tires than the wife does... and 90% of her driving is around town.. 700 to 800 miles a month or so...

Potholes... hell you can put a crater on the pavement off of a 105 mm howitzer shell, and I bet 9 out of 10 women would never ever see it, in broad day light. and its amazing how often they can ruin their car's alignment...

and then to top it off, they can tear up a tire, that isn't covered on the road hazard protection ya bought for them.

gotta love em...

Spare tires are usually neglected. They're stored out of the sun but they still dry rot. I wouldn't trust a 15 year old spare at highway speeds. To get the most from your investment, a 5 tire rotation schedule is the best as you're using that rubber instead of letting it rot. Do that with the original tires. After that, put the best of the worn out tires on the spare rim and repeat that each time you buy tires. That'll generally make sure your spare is less than 10 years old.
I found some 6 hole rims for my horse trailer that match the pickup size. I buy new pickup tires before the old ones are totally worn out and they go on the trailer.

Strange things can happen with tires. One time I was on a rutted dirt road in the winter. There was ice in all the puddles and I was driving on the shoulder and center of the road as the ruts were kind of deep. Then my front end slid sideways into some frozen ruts and the ice sheared off a valve stem. As it deflated, it dropped the pickup enough so I was high centered on the front diff and the lower lug nuts were all under water. I don't trust Handiman jacks but I was sure glad to have one that time. It was miserable trying to change a tire under freezing water.

Pard how am I going to afford dragster Harley parts and tyrannosaurus magnums if I’m blowing my cash on tires for the wife’s ride? Probably find some used baloney skins out behind the COOP TIRE shop I can get for $5 a piece. Then I’ll have money to get some ammo cans mounted on my dragster Sportster for disabled racers.

Pard build that dragster to hell with new tires!