the (not so) big black bulge that busted my balls

i told you folks i DO love me some alliteration…

…hence, the title!

car problems suck. car problems when you’re broke suck more. and they suck even more when they cramp your style. now, before i go off on mini rant i would like to state that i fully acknowledge that things COULD be worse, in the sense that the car could have a problem that made it non-driveable or left me stranded or something. so in that regard, i’m blessed. i totally get that.

that being said…

so, i’m wrapping up monday which, in typical monday fashion for me, is wrapping up a couple hours later than planned. so it goes these days. but as i get out of the car something catches my eye and i do a double-take to confirm – yep, it’s a bubble in the sidewall of my front tire. the same tire that only ninety days before had to be replaced because the sidewalls were cracking. i’m used to getting about a year out of my used tires (keep in mind i drive over 25,000 miles a year typically; i got my car with 83,000 miles on it labor day weekend of last year and it rolled over 115,000 this week) and now i was only getting three months? that’s kind of bullshit.

now, a sidewall bubble is a death sentence for a tire, but it doesn’t mean you can’t drive on it. it’s not 100% safe to do so, and certainly not at high speeds, but it can be done. and i had to do it for a solid week before i finally had the dough to do something about it – but what matters worse for me (although clearly not as bad as they coulda been) was that thirty-six hours after i found said tire issue they finally opened the toll road near my house. so here i am, driving on the fastest highway on this side of the planet, at seventy miles an hour getting honked at and shit. passed by hybrids and shit. SO not cool.

ends up the size tire i’ve ended up with, which was based off the goodyears that were on the car when i got it, weren’t what was recommended from the factory. with upsized wheels i’d get that call, but these are the factory wheels, so i don’t know what they were thinking – or what i was just basing my next set(s) of tires on what was on the car versus reading what the car said it was supposed to have on the actual car (you can read this on the inside door jam on a bmw, for the record) so yesterday the fronts were swapped for something more factory spec – took every nickel i had on me (which was actually quite a deal for what i got, i figured) but at least i had no more blowout concerns.

of course reading that there was a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of bmw owners against bridgestone for these tires didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy, but what are the chances my luck would be THAT shitty? and no, i can’t get in on it since my car didn’t ship with these run-flats originally.

and monday i finally got to hit 110 on the way home and it was a smooth drive – not too bad; i could get used to this!