Monday, September 18, 2006

Rick jinxed me again.

Rick, keep your tire problems to yourself. Guess that is what I get for being a wise guy about his flat.

I headed out this afternoon to take Marge out for a drive. And what did I find in the garage? Marge had a flat.

Unless your short term memory is as bad as mine, or you are new here, you'll remember that I just put new tires on the old girl three days ago. The 15 year old tires were still holding air, but I figured a blowout was imminent.

The tire shop had a hard time getting one tire to seat properly on the rim. So I was not really surprised by the flat tire. Seems that the old tires had inner tubes in them and the tubes allow water to get trapped next to the inside wall of the wheel. The wheel rusted out next to the valve stem, so it would not hold air for long.

They swapped my new tire onto my spare rim and all is good with Marge again. Once I got the tire installed she and I went for our cruise around the neighborhood. Just because we could.

After all this, I am not really in love with the new tires. They ride nice and all, but they look too small for the truck. The guys at the shop assured me that if I went with wider tires I would have wear problems quickly. Now that I have no spare wheel, I may have to look for some wider wheels and tires when these need to be replaced.

3 comments:

Rick said...

With an estimated wear life of 40k miles, driving it an average of 20 miles a week, you will need new tires in 2000 weeks or 38.5 years.

Anonymous said...

Marge? When did you pick that name? All I can think of is "Large Marge" from Pee Wee's movie years ago...

Mike said...

My grandma was Marguerite. I figured Marge was a good nickname for her AND the truck, though I was never brave enough to call my grandma that to her face!

Plus we love The Simpson's around here. And I think that the truck will always be (mainly) blue as Marge's hair.

There you have it. More info than you ever wanted.