(no subject)
Sep. 8th, 2011 08:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Yesterday i took my mom and auntie "down the country" to the cottage where another aunt lives and also a cousin, who has her cottage next door to the auntie's. Still with me? Good. :)
Anyway we had a pleasant afternoon, filled ourselves up with Auntie B's incredible seafood chowder and fresh tea biscuits and apple pie. We left close to 4 p.m. The cottage is down a little dirt track of a road so it's kind of pot hole-y and bumpy but they keep gravel on it so it's not too bad. Onto the paved road, a few miles down and all of a sudden we heard this loud loud sound, it sounded to me like a helicopter right over us or the roar of a big truck. It was neither. It was a flat tire!!! I don't know if we had run over something on the dirt road, or on the paved one or if it had been previously damaged and slowly deflating. It seemed ok on the highway earlier and i guess we are very lucky it didn't go flat on the highway going home.
We pulled over in front of someone's driveway and there were two men working on cars there. They kindly helped us and changed the tire to the smaller temporary "donut" tire. They looked at the flat one and they didn't think it could be fixed as it wasn't just a puncture, but a larger split or something. They told us where we could get a new tire in the town of Bridgewater which wasn't far away. The problem was, it was already about 4:30 by the time they were finished and the tire place would be closed at 5. And you can't drive fast on those temporary tires, you can only go about 50 Kph or so. I put the four way flashers on and went about 60 all the way, freaking out a bit worried that we wouldn't get to the Goodyear place in time. The road speed limits were between 70 and 80 kph most of the way. But really, there was probably a Canadian Tire in Bridgewater that would have been open later if we had to find it. We certainly couldn't drive all the way back to Halifax on the temp one even if we took the older road back instead of the highway. Well, we might have been ok but it wouldn't have been advisable.
We made it to the Goodyear place with less than 10 minutes to spare!!! Went inside and all the mechanics were standing around waiting to go home for the day. Um, guys? seems we lost a tire and need a new one. They looked at me funny and said "LOST a tire?" I laughed and said no, ok, not literally, but we had a flat, the guys that changed it don't think it can be fixed and we're on the "donut", gotta drive back to Halifax." Right. They checked, and agreed, can't fix it. They had the old one off and a new one on in about 5 minutes. Zip, zip, with a power thingy to remove the wheel nuts on and put them back on. Excellent and it didn't cost Mom and arm and a leg either, which we were anticipating. A very reasonable $145 for the tire, installation, tax and a couple of dollars for a tire disposal fee. Sorted. We drove back to the city with confidence.
I was glad to get home, though. I decided not to keep the car overnight. Just tired of driving really. I have to do some errands and one of them is downtown Halifax so figured parking would be a pain anyway. Figured i'd take the bus. Only it's pissing down raining today. Figures. I am also up way too early. I had to get up to pee and couldn't get back to sleep. Maybe i'll go tomorrow to do the banking bits and today i'll do laundry. I'll see if it stops later. When i've got it on my mind that i want to do those things today, i really want to get it done.
Anyway we had a pleasant afternoon, filled ourselves up with Auntie B's incredible seafood chowder and fresh tea biscuits and apple pie. We left close to 4 p.m. The cottage is down a little dirt track of a road so it's kind of pot hole-y and bumpy but they keep gravel on it so it's not too bad. Onto the paved road, a few miles down and all of a sudden we heard this loud loud sound, it sounded to me like a helicopter right over us or the roar of a big truck. It was neither. It was a flat tire!!! I don't know if we had run over something on the dirt road, or on the paved one or if it had been previously damaged and slowly deflating. It seemed ok on the highway earlier and i guess we are very lucky it didn't go flat on the highway going home.
We pulled over in front of someone's driveway and there were two men working on cars there. They kindly helped us and changed the tire to the smaller temporary "donut" tire. They looked at the flat one and they didn't think it could be fixed as it wasn't just a puncture, but a larger split or something. They told us where we could get a new tire in the town of Bridgewater which wasn't far away. The problem was, it was already about 4:30 by the time they were finished and the tire place would be closed at 5. And you can't drive fast on those temporary tires, you can only go about 50 Kph or so. I put the four way flashers on and went about 60 all the way, freaking out a bit worried that we wouldn't get to the Goodyear place in time. The road speed limits were between 70 and 80 kph most of the way. But really, there was probably a Canadian Tire in Bridgewater that would have been open later if we had to find it. We certainly couldn't drive all the way back to Halifax on the temp one even if we took the older road back instead of the highway. Well, we might have been ok but it wouldn't have been advisable.
We made it to the Goodyear place with less than 10 minutes to spare!!! Went inside and all the mechanics were standing around waiting to go home for the day. Um, guys? seems we lost a tire and need a new one. They looked at me funny and said "LOST a tire?" I laughed and said no, ok, not literally, but we had a flat, the guys that changed it don't think it can be fixed and we're on the "donut", gotta drive back to Halifax." Right. They checked, and agreed, can't fix it. They had the old one off and a new one on in about 5 minutes. Zip, zip, with a power thingy to remove the wheel nuts on and put them back on. Excellent and it didn't cost Mom and arm and a leg either, which we were anticipating. A very reasonable $145 for the tire, installation, tax and a couple of dollars for a tire disposal fee. Sorted. We drove back to the city with confidence.
I was glad to get home, though. I decided not to keep the car overnight. Just tired of driving really. I have to do some errands and one of them is downtown Halifax so figured parking would be a pain anyway. Figured i'd take the bus. Only it's pissing down raining today. Figures. I am also up way too early. I had to get up to pee and couldn't get back to sleep. Maybe i'll go tomorrow to do the banking bits and today i'll do laundry. I'll see if it stops later. When i've got it on my mind that i want to do those things today, i really want to get it done.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 02:51 pm (UTC)tire
Date: 2011-09-08 02:47 pm (UTC)Re: tire
Date: 2011-09-08 02:51 pm (UTC)