I was running some errands yesterday and had another flat tire! I guess it's the first flat with this new car, but I have had a string of flats in the past year or so. It's funny, I felt the car pulling to the right just before I realized I had the flat, but I was driving in a right-hand lane that was half-pavement and half-concrete and dipped to the right, so I was thinking "gee, if I wasn't on such a strange surface I'd think I had a flat tire!"
A motorcycle pulled alongside me and started gesturing to me, and I figured out he was indicating I had a flat. I pulled off the road and yep, sure was. I don't think I'd driven on it long though. It was on the rear passenger side so I'm lucky he spotted it and told me about it, or I would have driven further before noticing, due to the strange road conditions in my lane.
It took AAA a while to check to see that I was a member, but once they did the repair guy came within 20 minutes. I pointed out the tire, and he went to get his jack.
Once he had it up, he started taking off the front tire, when it was the back tire that was flat. I said, "what are you doing to that one? The rear one is flat." He said, "this one's flat". Some back-and-forth ensued, and it turns out that one was partially flat too, although he might have just been covering for tackling the wrong tire.
It was two nails through the flat tire, but the guy also pointed out that all 4 tires are cracked (which is sad, since he says "they look new", as does everything on Mom's rarely driven car), so I am going to have them checked out. He got the nails out and fixed the tire on the spot for only $20 (the repair wasn't covered by AAA). He didn't put air in the others as he said with the cracking it's better not to until the tires get checked.
So, I may need new tires. Guess I'll find out.
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Hi there! This is expected...
ReplyDeleteThose tires are old and probably dried out because they were not much used in the past couple of years.
The bright side of the story is that you are in the US and everything is much cheaper than in Canada (plus the taxes are much lower too!) so if I were you, if you get the tires inspected and 1 or 2 need replacing, change all 4 (and buy good ones).
Cracked tires can be dangerous at higher speeds as a blowout can make you lose control of your car.
By the way, you always change tires in pairs (ie: if changing rear right, also change rear left).
-Eric
Unfortunately tires do deteriorate over time even if they don't have many kms on them and have hardly any physical wear. It's a 2003, so it's 6 or 7 years old, and sometimes tires sit around in a warehouse for a while before they're even put on a car, so yep...you may have to invest in new rubber.
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