i’m getting wheel sick and tires of these issues.

yeah, this almost pushes the UFC’s level of punnery…

…almost.

but it’s me trying to make light of a subject that, quite honestly, is driving me completely bat shit.

so, i had the flat incident back before xmas. sucked. very cool my boss covered the repair, but within a week i nailed another piece of masonry in the road and dented in the outside edge of the same wheel!

(it’s always been the inside edge before that)

but the tire pressure light was STILL on. and while the newly dented wheel seems to be holding air just fine (prompting me to decide to ride that out, quite literally, for now) the tire pressure sensor on the right rear tire was saying “no signal” in addition to a couple other odd errors. so, i bought a new (to me) sensor, and since it was factory AND off a similar car, i figured it would be programmed up and sync up just fine.

apparently i was wrong.

prior to that discovery, i made this one…

…yep. you’ve heard the term “steel belted radials”? well, these would be those steel belts. the problem is, you’re not supposed to be able to actually SEE them at any given point, and if you can your tire is pretty much on it’s way out. so the UFC had to run my emergency tire out to me, and we swapped the TPMS sensor. so now i’m running on a non-runflat tire, so i’m keeping my spare and jack in the trunk (not great for the extra wait, not great for the lack of trunk space, way great on the “peace of mind” scale).

before the ufc could even make it to the spot with the tire, i ordered two more back tires (used – $375 for the set) but before they could ship (the next day) i was contacted by the guy i ordered from and was told they had sold them prior to me ordering but hadn’t got to pull them out of online inventory, so they’d just refund me. i pointed out that they had two more of the exact same tires, in slightly better shape, for around $50 more for the pair, and what they REALLY should do was ship those instead for two reasons…

1. i didn’t fuck up, they did, so the extra $50 out of their pocket should be looked at as a “cost of doing business”

2. if they refunded, i had to wait three to five BANKING days (and monday was a holiday) before i’d see the credit and could get more tires as said card was near it’s limit

they still refunded. assholes. they also refused to reduce to match what i had already paid. so fuck elite_tires on eBay. i was able to get another tire from another source that did seem as good of shape, but it wasn’t from THOSE dicks. the tire light was STILL on. you’d go to reset the system and it just hung in reset mode. at this point i had, from where i sat, three options…

1. replace the TMPS receiver ($125 used, $350 new)
2. replace the fuse (pennies)
3. see if the new sensor could “LEARN” ($35 with amazon tool)

i did both two and three, and lo and behold, LAST friday the light finally went out and the system showed all green lights and active for the first time in a month or so. all was well with the world…

…until tuesday. tuesday, at the shop, a co-worker pointed out how now the OTHER back tire was showing signs of extreme wear, so i ordered ANOTHER back tire. tuesday, on the way home, the warning came back that the TPMS was out. this time, i pulled over to start the reset, and it reset fine…for about a mile. then it came back on. reset again, all green and good, and a mile or two later repeat. the final time i pulled over to reset was at the end of my street, and it went green right as i parked in the driveway, and i shut off the car. as of when i’m writing this (wednesay, noonish) it’s still out, but now the oil light is on. a quart will fix that.

and now i’m just waiting on the two other used tires i ordered for the back so i can be back on smoother runflat tires again…