Tuesday 12 June 2018

Changing Tyres

This past year has been a heck of a mental ride. If I could describe it, I'd say it's a bit like driving a car. You're going steadily along at 100km/h, the road is generally quite straight with the occasional bend, however it's manageable. Suddenly, up ahead the tarseal is ripped up; holes and small craters placed all over the show, just like you'd expect it to look after some extreme storm had rampaged through.
Of course I'm going too fast and the car is manual. In my panic to change down I instead crunch the gears into reverse, creating a sickening roar of confusion from the engine just as the front wheels crash into the first of the holes.
Finally, I find fourth gear but the tyre is severely damaged. I try to bring the vehicle to an easy halt - but it stalls viciously.

I have not been taught how to change a tyre.

Changing a tyre seems easy in reality. You jack the car up, loosen the nuts and replace it with the spare. Some cars only have a spacesaver, so once you're back up and running you have to stick to a particular speed limit and you really should drive straight to the nearest tyre centre to get the repairs sorted in the first instance.
While other vehicles have a perfectly road legal spare and the need to fix the other one isn't as important. Just fix it once you have the time and the money available, and hope that you don't run into any more trouble in the meantime.

However, changing a tyre is not simple. You might have passengers or passers by who try to help you, giving you directions on how to use the jack and where it should be placed to safely raise the vehicle. Or you might be on your own, completely out of cell phone service, at night in the pouring rain. The tyre needs changing because you need to continue on your journey. However there is nobody around to hold a torch or umbrella to keep some of the rain at bay, so instead you get pummeled as it comes down like sheets of ice while you fumble around in the dark.

Even if there are people around you, they can only give you advice. Even if they've had experience in changing tyres in the past, it doesn't mean they can push you aside and do it for you. You need to do it on your own, with or without their verbal assistance. 

It took me more than six months to figure out how to change that tyre. Although my next issue wasn't with getting the tyre fixed, rather it was with starting the engine of the car again. I'm not very good at driving manuals and I kept stalling it until eventually the engine flooded. Which left me sitting here, waiting a while for the engine to simply cool off until I could try turning the ignition again.

In the last couple months I got that car started and I've been cruising along slowly in first gear up until now. Although I think I can probably step it up a notch now. I spent some time and got the damaged tyre fixed as soon as I could. I sure wasn't risking it happening again and then finding myself stranded somewhere, for even longer than before. I'm also looking into swapping my manual car for an automatic, then at least if I do come across a similar, hideous section of tar seal further down the track I'll have more control...