Last night as I returned home from dinner with Ann I had an interesting incident happen. I hit a pot hole. Based on how hard my car hit it, it felt large enough to swallow my car. There was no avoiding it, I didn’t see it until the last second and when I did the car in the lane next to me was crowding me so I had no room to maneuver – much less time.
So, with a sickening thud that felt like the whole car was hit by a rampaging rhino I drove through it. I knew from how hard I hit that the likelihood of something being damaged was pretty good. I was worried I would have a flat tire from it, but the car SEEMED to be handling alright immediately after. It was pulling a little to the right, but I figured that the alignment had just been screwed up. On the remainder of the drive, though, it seemed to be pulling more and more. I made it home, parked the car and took a look at the passenger side front wheel as that’s what hit hardest – sure enough the tire was just going flat. great.
I called around to the tire and repair shops nearby – I really wanted to get it fixed right away so as to have transportation, after all. Firestone said they were too backed up and wouldn’t get to it that day, Midas said they were closing in five minutes, they suggested that perhaps wal-mart’s tire center would be able to do it. None of the other places were even answering their phones. So I called wal-mart, they said if i could get the car there they could fix it.
So I went back out to my car and looked in the emergency repair kit I have stashed in my trunk (that has now come in handy on at least three separate occasions – i highly recommend getting one) and got out some tire sealant repair stuff in a can. You screw it onto the tire’s nozzle and it fills the tire enough to get you to a repair place and seals it against leaks. It wasn’t much but it enabled me to drive (slowly) to walmart. My friend trevor lives near there and came to wal-mart too and let me hang at his place while they were working on the car (they quoted about an hour to get everything done).
I’m lucky that the hole didn’t dent or otherwise screw up my rims. I wish the state would get the roads repaired – there seem to be a lot of pot holes, dangerous ones, all over the place lately. I wonder how many other people have had similar incidents happen there.
At least i was able to get it repaired that night, and Trevor was nice enough to give me a place to hang out while I waited.
dude, milwaukee has some terrible streets! it’s nasty on the northeast side where we live, but especially nasty once you start heading west into the lower income areas. i have two specific routes i take to work, one if i get coffee from caribou, the other if i don’t – and i have all the nasty potholes memorized. even still, i take a few nasty bumps here and there and they scare the shit out of me! just like you say, it’s pretty much a matter of time before one swallows my car!
Wasn’t it nice of mom to give us those emergency kit for our cars!!!
do you remember the Christmas the Maura hit a very large pothole right outside the neighborhood and flattened two tires on Mom’s Saub and dented the rims!! Those roads have never been good in the winter!
See you tomorrow!
The areas of Indy around my house have a lot of nasty ones. I wish they’d get fixed – I can’t afford any more tire replacements
@Beth – Yeah, at the time we got them I was a bit skeptical about them, but now that I’ve had to use it a few times I’ve found myself thinking “wow, I’m glad they gave us these!”
Now I firmly believe that EVERY car needs something like that in it, you never know when you’re going to need it but when you do you’ll be glad you had it.