Are you looking for updates on the Tour de Madeira? Well then I’m afraid you’re going to have to go take a gander at my OTHER blog. Yes, I realize I am a loser for having multiple blogs. It reminds me of a Sonic commercial I saw the other day. If you haven’t seen these commercials, then you are missing out. This one wasn’t anything like “DON’T YOU BRING THAT WEAK TOT ACTION!” but it was still pretty funny. Man and a woman in a car. The guy is talking about something he likes at Sonic (Chili Cheese fries or something?) and mentions how he is going to put it on his blog for all his “readers”. Then the woman says “Oh you mean your mom” Good times…

In any case, I wanted to drop a little note to talk again about how awesome a car fixer I am. In the previous post, you noted that I am an amazing battery fixing fiend. So the very day after, Carolyn goes out and the right rear tire is flat. Annoyingly, we just replaced this tire maybe a year or so ago. So, I get home, and decide we need to go to TireDiscounters. I was hoping it was still under warranty, but as it turned out you had to buy that extra, so clearly I did not do that. My choices are a $18 tire repair vs. a $55 new tire. I think about it for awhile, and decide I don’t feel like going home, getting the tire off, and bringing it back, so I opt for the new tire. Oh did I mention that the spare tire is stuck in its position, rendering it essentially useless? So that’s nice. Anyways, I go to buy the new tire and they ask for the old one. I say I don’t have it – can’t I just take the tire home and put it on. I then am made to understand that they have to put it on the rim. So, since I have to go home and get the tire and bring it in anyways, I figure I’ll try the repair. Back to home….

So after I get home, I get the jack out, and I jack up the car, and start taking the tire off. The kids are out playing in the yard, so I don’t want to leave the car jacked up while I go to T.D., so I start to jack the car back down (with the tire off). As you might imagine, with nothing to balance out the rear-right, the car just continues to sink till it gets close down to the axle. I realize that was silly. Of course then I come up with the possibly even more silly idea that I’ll jack the car up, put the tire on, jack it back down low enough to get the jack out from under the van, and then slide the tire off. Obviously that does not work either. So I realize that the jack has to stay on, so I send the kids in.

I get back to Tire Discounters and wheel the tire in. The manager-type guy welcomes me and gets the tire back to the shop. Some other guy starts working on it. He starts spraying the tire with some sort of liquid. I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. I mean I know he was looking for leaks, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to manifest itself. Then I see it starting to bubble up. Aha – air! So as I’m watching him do that, I remember thinking “Hey this isn’t so hard; I could probably do this”. Then he whips the tire up on some machine and it essentially magically takes the tire off the rim, upon which I think “Hmm maybe not” 🙂

In any case, there was a small nail in the tire, which he removed. Then he patched it with some sort of patch, and then proceeded to light the tire on fire. No, really. After doing various things, the tire was good as new. I guess. So as I’m wheeling the tire out to my car, the manager-guy says “Take it easy Dan, don’t worry about it”. So then I think, hmm, does “don’t worry about it” mean that it’s free? Should I just drive off? Do I need to go in and pay? In the end, I went back in, and he told me that I didn’t have to pay for it. Sweet!

Now while this was good customer service on his part, I do wonder about it. It was right at closing time by the time we got done. And having worked in a retail environment, I wonder if he hadn’t already done his End of Day procedures, and didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of opening the store back up for my measly $18.