the ballad of the black rubber bullshit (part i)

i waited until all the drama settled…

…or, at the very least, i THINK all the drama has settled.

if not somebody might get cut.

this all started on monday, august 12th. i was on my way home when i realized i was outta milk. i have had milk every morning pretty much since birth, so this was a thing – that being said, it was around 4pm and dante himself can’t describe the level of hell that is going to a town of 17,500 people’s only grocery store from 4-7pm…so i hit a convenience store. it was pretty packed, so i had to park in the last space, which meant my front tire was resting on the fill up cap for one of the gas tanks. when i got out, my tire pressure light came on – thinking it was just because it had been resting on that cap, i reset it and left the lot. by the stop sign, it was green again…

…for about ten seconds. then the alert came back. i reset at the next stop sign but it came back on within 100 yards. i reset a third time as i turned onto my street, and it didn’t even make it two houses. so i knew it was a thing.

the next morning (august 13th) i went to fill it up but could hear it hissing after i did. i went to JAB’s favorite tire spot here in lockhart but the guy didn’t have the proper attachments on his machine (it had broken) for doing lower profile tires, but he said we could plug it. we pushed more air in it and felt around the back edge where we heard the hiss only to discover (by feel) that the tread and sidewall had separated, leaving only the rubber membrane, which had easily been punctured by the pressure of the aforementioned tank cap.

this was honestly a blessing in disguise – with that kind of separation combined with speeds around 100mph and ambient temps in the triple digits, this muthaphuka could have easily peeled open like an orange and left me stranded.

when i’d gotten my tires and rims back in april there was still one tire on the car in great shape, and it was a goodyear runflat. so i had them remount that tire after they pulled the tire pressure sensor so i’d have a full size spare. there’s only a .3 difference in diameter (and zero difference in width) so it really doesn’t effect the ride at all. i went home, swapped out for the spare, and drove to my tire spot in east austin. they had ONE tire in stock that was my size, but it was some chinese brand i’d never heard of, AND it was NOT a runflat. but beggars can’t be choosers, and it was only sixty bucks, so i went ahead and said to mount it…but the sidewall split when they went to do so (again, a blessing, as it split on the machine versus 100mph on the toll road) so i left with a bare rim and hit four other tire places to no avail. nobody had my size, used, in a runflat – but said they could order it for $250 (non-runflat, new) or $650 (runflat, new). i found a pair that were the right size, matched the back tires, and were runflats, so i ordered em that day (tuesday, august 13) and they said they’d arrive that saturday, august 17th.

so then, we wait, while we listen to the rhythmic (annoying) beep of my tire pressure system saying it’s malfunctioning since it’s only reading three tires…

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