slo’s MONDAY 5/13 poll - Tire Repair/Replacement

[slo]

Coming to your car and finding the tire flat is sooooo…….frustrating, and something most of us had to deal with at one time. Not only does it hurt your pocketbook, but it also hurts your schedule - having to make time to fix it, getting a ride from someone and etc. Very annoying! So, I’m wondering today…..

Have you had a flat tire in the past?
Did you need to get the car towed?
Could the tire be fixed or did you have to replace it?
(multiple choice)


For Me……We’ve been having bad luck with tires here, which is what inspired this poll. Saturday 5/4, DD20 hit a pot hole at night and that destroyed her tire. She’s 2 1/2 hours away at school, so she had to handle it herself and she did. She remembered how to change her tire and put on the spare and then $275 later she bought the new tire - so that was an unpleasant expense for us. Then a few days ago I find a big bolt, or something like that, in my tire (picture below), so we had to deal with that. Bad things happen in 3s, so let’s hope my DH doesn’t blow out his tire next . I’m earning a lot of airline points on the Chase SW this month - LOL!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I had a flat tire a couple of years ago. I took a corner too tightly and rolled over a curb. It blew out a tire. Luckily, I was only about a mile from home. I parked the car and walked home. My husband was able to put the spare on and drive the car to the repair shop. I ended up with four new tires because my old tires were in bad shape. I was lucky I was near home and not in the middle of nowhere.

We also blew out a tire on Christmas Day, on the way to a relative's house, 90 miles from home. We had rolled over a highway reflector, the ones that are imbedded in the road. Luckily, we had a spare. A lot of newer cars don't have a real spare, which is a little scary.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

*knock on wood* it has been a while... it was between Covid and now the most recently. I ran over a board and pretty soon my tire pressure light came on. I went directly to the tire place and they repaired it and that was the end of it. A couple years before that, I had one with a leak that eventually got to where it wouldn't stay inflated, ended up replacing the tire.

DH just this spring had one that was completely flat. He came out of work one afternoon and found it that way. He had AAA out there, and they put that temporary tire on there. He went to the tire place and they just replaced the tire b/c it was damaged in a way that could not be repaired. Gotta love that road hazard warranty!

 

[WDWEPCOT]

We dealt with that a lot as we moved into a new subdivision being built - pain in butt the amount of nails & screws everywhere!! You can only patch a tire so many times !
I hate buying tires with a passion that runs deep & wide !! I won’t get into all of it but it’s a chore I despise!
So sorry you had this happen SLO !!! I hope your luck improves!!!

 

[Skywalker3]

We're about to deal with a tire tonight. Our Elantra has had very low pressure the last couple of weeks. I kept filling it, but it's leaking out somewhere. We've not really chanced driving it, but have to tonight, to Sams for the new tires, so hopefully no issues on the way....if we do have any, we'll likely call AAA. We've had to wait this long to deal with it though, due to schedules, etc. It is a big pain!
Good luck with yours, SLO, and hopefully this time, it wont' come in 3s.
I hate dealing with car stuff, more than anything else.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

YES, quite awhile ago. I was on my way home from work. One mi from work, 17 miles from home . Thankfully AAA got to me as quickly as they did and I was on my way! Coincidentally, I just saw someone pulled off the road yesterday dealing with a flat. I always feel bad for them!! I was lucky when mine happened on a city street and I could turn a corner and get out of everyone's way!. The people yesterday were on a busy county road.

 

[Meriweather]

It has been a long time since I had a flat tire.
But either DH changed the tire or we called AAA, I don't remember which.
It was fixable.

 

[tvguy]

. Luckily, we had a spare. A lot of newer cars don't have a real spare, which is a little scary.

My daughter's Ford Fusion Hybrid didn't come with a spare, just a battery powered air pump and a can of Fix A Flat. The gasoline models all some with a spare, and the well is there in the trunk, they just try to save weight by not giving you a spare. I went to the junkyard and bought her a temporary spare, and jack, they of course, fit in the well in the trunk no problem.
My Ford Flex and my wife's Toyota Camry Hybrid came with temporary spares.

 

[ronandannette]

DS clipped a curb last fall and damaged the sidewall of one of my tires. It was a blessing that I noticed the huge bulge and got it in for replacement before we had an incident. Sadly, only a week or so later, that same tire was vandalized on Halloween night and needed to be replaced again. We go to an EXCELLENT tire store - they had mercy on me and covered it under the road-hazard warranty.

 

[Kitty 34]

It's been years since I've had a flat (knock on wood). DH fixed it.

 

[lovin'fl]

Had a couple flats many years ago and just had the spare put on and then drove to get new tires or hole repaired. My dad was once an auto mechanic so I could call him in my teens and twenties (he died when I was 28) and he would come help. Though he taught me how to change a tire so I could do it myself.

My son has had a flat a couple times in past several years. We had to help the 1st time because his car had lock nuts on the tires and he had no key. That was fun. Had to have that towed to service shop and get the lock nuts cut off. Anytime you buy a used Nissan, make sure they have the lock nuts key in the glove compartment.

I hit a cement thing and gouged my tire 18 months ago and had to replace tires rather quickly. The gouge was a big flap into sidewall of tire pretty deep. I could drive it but was worried it would blow out on me so we took it the next day to get replaced.

 

[soccerdad72]

A little bit of everything in the past year or two.

I've had a nail in the sidewall of one of my tires - has to get a replacement for that.

Had a screw in the tread of another tire - fortunately, that one could be patched.

Blew out a tire in our rental car in Maui on the Road to Hana (on the was back down) when I got to close to the side of the road and caught a sharp rock that was jutting out. Was so fortunate to have a local driving by offer to help change the tire but then had to do the majority of the route back down on a donut. Took it back to the rental car company and they were quick to get me a new rental.

And just two weeks ago, on a really rainy day while driving to go see our son's senior design project in NY, we hydroplaned our SUV and ended up across two lanes of traffic sideways (fortunately there wasn't other cars near us at the time) and ended up backwards in the median with a blown out rear tire. We had to get a flatbed truck to tow the car out and take us to get a rental car (which we still have, as they're still working on repairing the car).

 

[barb969]

I had a tire with a slow leak that had to get air every week or so. I replaced it.

 

[bobbiwoz]

DH fixed my flat, but we have also had bolt, screws whatever in tires that had to be replaced. It has been years since either of those things have happened.

 

[robinb]

I’ve had a couple of blown tires. I was able to use the spare each time (or have AAA come). I’ve had to have tires replaced and I’ve been able to just repair them.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

A little over 3 weeks ago, on April 19th, I was driving home from a high school softball away game about 45 minutes from our house. I hit a curb during a turn that had some exposed rebar and it slashed two of my four tires (both passenger side). The corner of this intersection was really dark to me and I misjudged the turn.

• Thankfully, I was able to make it to the Circle K that sat back off the intersection and it was right after the game. So, I had a decent place to wait and one of the other team families was able to give DH a ride back so DD15 would have a ride home from school after the team bus got back.
• I called AAA for a tow. Which took about an hour to arrive.
• During my wait, I made an appointment with Discount Tire for the next morning.
• It was too late to be towed to a tire shop, so they had to tow me home. I think I made it home around 11:15pm.
• The tow truck driver didn't realize that I had two flats and I had an AWD vehicle. Their flatbed was recently totaled, so they had to put my donut on my back tire and hook up dollies to the back end of the vehicle. It added about 30 minutes to the job.
• I had to wake up early the next morning to schedule another tow to Discount Tire.
• This driver was nearly an hour late because something went wrong with one of the hoses in the tow truck.
• The Saturday morning tow truck driver had a flatbed and he was overly critical of how the Friday night tow parked it on the street.
• I still managed to get to Discount Tire ahead of my appointment and they worked me in early.
• There was no saving the two slashed tires and my set had about 56K miles on them. The OEM tires were nearing their end of life and we have a lot of driving planned this summer, so I was planning to replace them no later than next month. The front driver's side tire was the only surviving tire that was still in the green for tread life. That's because I had to replace it about 3 weeks after I bought the vehicle...and it's never held air as well since I did a fix a flat on it in fall of 2022.
• The Discount Tire website only showed two sets of tires in stock that would fit my vehicle. I was going to stick to my guns and go with the cheaper set that also had the better customer reviews and longevity ratings. They hit me with a surprise option 3. Apparently, someone custom ordered a set of tires that would fit my vehicle and they were willing to sell them to me...with a small discount. If they had been the Michelins I had been eyeing as a tire splurge, I would have done it, but they were not. So I stood firm on my original choice.
• I was out the door with four new tires before 10am.

I guess I should be grateful for my AAA membership. This also was my first of bad things happen in 3s.

 

[kanerf]

Hit a pothole on the I-70 at speed. Bit of a scare, but pulled off the road and called Triple A and it was taken care of. Took about 2 hours to get towed in and have the tire replaced.

 

[mjkacmom]

I get a flat a few times a year (we have AAA). I’m going to say 2 times out of 3 it can be patched.

 

[Praying Colonel]

Last time was about 4 years ago. I was in a line of traffic on a busy 2-lane road. A truck 2 vehicles in front of me lost a metal piece which the vehicle in front of me couldn't avoid--he struck it, causing an almost immediate blowout. I tried to avoid it but couldn't, causing a blowout (same for the vehicle behind me). Thankfully none of us were hurt. I installed the spare and limped home.

 

[fla4fun]

I had a tire separate between the tread and sidewalls as I was driving to work before dawn a few years ago. There wasn’t a firm place to pull over, so I called AAA to come to put the spare on. I was afraid the little jack I had would not be stable in the sand. I later drove to the garage and, due to the age of my tires, decided to replace all four at once. The tires looked fine, but they were just getting old and I didn’t want to risk another one failing.