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Last Thursday turned out to be a pretty lucky day. We drove our 02 about 260 interstate miles down to my mother's house on a day that started with a light sprinkle and ended with 103° on the dash readout. After arriving we visited for awhile, I went outside to move the car in order to get into her van to go to dinner, when I see the front driver's side tire is almost flat!!!
How lucky can we be that it is flat under a car port on a blister hot day, instead of on the side of the interstate with the sun beating down!?!? I put some are in it with an air compressor and quickly discovered it was the valve stem causing the problem. It was too late to take it to be fixed by then, so we went on to dinner.
I was afraid even pumped up that it wouldn't make it the 2-3 miles to Walmart to have it fixed, so after dinner I began the process of putting on the spare tire. Fortunately, I had replaced the spare donut a couple of years ago with a 205/55-17. All went well with the tire change until it became apparent my 235/55-17 wheel tire combo was not going to fit on the trunk spare tire well and the trunk close, so I loaded it into Mom's van and gave my wife the bad news she would have to get up early to go to Walmart with me.
Friday morning the spare tire worked well on the way to Walmart. Unfortunately, an earlier bird caught the worm and beat us to be first in line for service. Since I have lifetime rotation and balance from Walmart, I told the service writer I wanted that done as well. In the end the whole thing cost me less than $4 for the new valve stem. So, that's why Thursday was a lucky day, when compared to the disaster it could have been. For those that are interested this pic shows the car with the 205/55-17 on the ground.
20220729_071039.jpg
How lucky can we be that it is flat under a car port on a blister hot day, instead of on the side of the interstate with the sun beating down!?!? I put some are in it with an air compressor and quickly discovered it was the valve stem causing the problem. It was too late to take it to be fixed by then, so we went on to dinner.
I was afraid even pumped up that it wouldn't make it the 2-3 miles to Walmart to have it fixed, so after dinner I began the process of putting on the spare tire. Fortunately, I had replaced the spare donut a couple of years ago with a 205/55-17. All went well with the tire change until it became apparent my 235/55-17 wheel tire combo was not going to fit on the trunk spare tire well and the trunk close, so I loaded it into Mom's van and gave my wife the bad news she would have to get up early to go to Walmart with me.
Friday morning the spare tire worked well on the way to Walmart. Unfortunately, an earlier bird caught the worm and beat us to be first in line for service. Since I have lifetime rotation and balance from Walmart, I told the service writer I wanted that done as well. In the end the whole thing cost me less than $4 for the new valve stem. So, that's why Thursday was a lucky day, when compared to the disaster it could have been. For those that are interested this pic shows the car with the 205/55-17 on the ground.
20220729_071039.jpg
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