Yepper, I have been buying tires on the installment method.
One tire at a time... installed.
Whenever I have extra in the emergency contingency fund, I've been buying one tire. I had managed to work my way up to 3 out of 7 tires in 6 years. *Sigh* I never could seem to amass enough for 7 tires all at once. Of course I did buy a new bicycle recently, like I needed 2 more tires to keep up with, but it does provide me critical alternative solutions for health and occasionally even shopping.
There's been a lot of other emergencies and sudden repairs in 6 years including *ahem* my river accident the last of last July resulting in emergency surgery and all that fun mayhem. Then there was the transmission fiasco (same week as river accident) resulting in a bigger torque converter installation. And then there was two different tire incidents already... well, if you've been reading the blog, you already know most of (but no way near ALL the chaos of my life)!
But since the right rear inner dually tire untreaded a week and a half ago, angels, dear sweet angels sent an early Christmas gift so instead of throwing it into the emergency contingency fund (or buying a mountain of dark chocolate) I bypassed all that and drove to the tire store. Even got an oil change while I was there. Woohoo! The way I see it... a gas engine can never have too many oil changes. Baby likes her lube.
New oil, new tires and my baby is happy again. I was so excited I hit the curb while making a turn. Grrrrrrrrrr... but I was going so slow, it wasn't much of an issue but more of a severe embarrassment. Well, if we are going to discuss embarrassment... I also got lost finding the place and I only had 2 streets to follow from here to there. Good grief.
Riding with me is an adventure!
My friend and I left at 9am, an unseasonably early departure for us, arriving at Glenn's Tire and Auto in Melbourne Florida. Despite their name, they do a ton of work on RV's and trucks. Matter of fact in 2014 they sold me 2 tires, a front end alignment and new whatchamacallicks, bushings or something that was crumbling on the front end. All I know is after that, baby drove like a Cadillac Hearse delivering the beloved in supreme comfort.
While at the tire store I learned my spare tire was manufactured in 1993. Amazing...
If you are slow on math, that is 22 years old! Holy dog poop!
Even stranger, my remaining old tires had date codes of 2002 and 2003. RV enthusiasts suggest that 7 years are older and you're risking life and limb. RV tires tend to dry rot long before the tread falls off.
I guess it's genuine proof that guardian angels have been riding with me all these years.
At some point years back when someone was working on the RV I said "Hey, can you take that compressed air and shoot some in the spare tire... in case I ever need it." And they did, and I did and all was chi. More or less.
Small world my 22 year old spare was showing signs of being dry rotted. But it's held air all these years under cover. Even the past 11 days since it was put on the RV on I-94 during massive traffic, it has held air.
Sadly, we discovered a big hole in the wheel well that goes under the refrigerator. Yikes! Finding THAT explains some of the horrific noise I heard. When the tread came off, it slapped my baby and knocked a hole in her belly!
I had not seen the hole inside, because underneath my refrigerator is a builtin drawer, so it was hiding the damages.
Good grief.
Getting that fixed next... never a dull moment around here!
Oh and I bought a used 2 year old tire for my new/used spare. With six new tires installed in the last year and a half, well hopefully I won't need that spare for another 12 years...
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Glad you had angels to help you replace you tires. I am the lady who had two inner dually sidewall blowouts, but at least mine were covered under a recall so Michelin replaced all of mine. It was scary just having the ones I had blow. My biggest fear in driving is having a front tire blowout and losing control of my vehicle, so I am glad you got yours replaced!
ReplyDeleteJudy