Ghost-Bolted Tire

 Story time! I had an adventure of sorts, and got a bunch of pictures. Ever get a flat tire?

Lazy Sunday drive, you hear the bumpity-bumpity-bumpity noise that you recognize as "Oh no, I think my tire just went flat!" Luckily I was on a main road with a big shoulder lane, and I even manage to pull over into a lot that needed development but still had the entrance paved, so I was extra-safe away from the traffic. You can clearly see a giant bolt sticking out of the tire. Ugh. There's a lot more to this story!

Hmm... There's a big bolt in the tire, but it's still inflated. You'd think the air would escape from around the "wound" but nope. It feels tight. Still, no way I'm going to drive on that, it will surely "go" at some point, I'm not going to risk that at all.

Got the tire off. Still full of air. It was a relatively fresh tire with plenty of "tread" on it. Good thing I got the warranty and they'll measure the difference and give me a huge discount on a new one.

La-la-la. My friend has changed a tire before. No big deal. This should have been a simple thing, and I would have only posted a couple of pictures in the middle of a different posting. But there's plenty more to this.

This might not be the clear-est picture, but the spare tire was flat, too. 100% not-inflated. Argh.

A few hundred feet in front of where we pulled over, was a Kia dealership. We decided to hobble the flat donut over there, nice and slowly, to see if we could inflate the spare tire. No luck, it was a Sunday, and they were closed. There was nobody around and we walked around the outside of the building to see if there was an air hose anywhere, nope.

At this point we remember to call the Mavis we usually go to, because they might need to order our uncommon tire size, and make an appointment to go tomorrow to change it. We also walk next door to the Lexus dealership, which was also closed and no air hose outside anywhere.

Stranded, we decide to put the yes-inflated, but bolt-in-it-still tire back on. Maybe we can hobble our way to the nearest gas station to inflate the spare? I mean, it's still got air in it. Back on it goes!

Ergh. The tire with the bolt in it was making the loudest BANG! every time it would roll around and hit the street. BANG! (pause) BANG! (pause) BANG! as the car sped up... BANG! BANG! BANG! It was so loud! We winced in pain each time. We barely got anywhere when it eventually hissed and went flat. Well, that was not the best idea.

At this point we notice that we are right across the street from the Mavis in Freehold. We call them up. They do not have a tire in stock, but offer to inflate our spare tire. All we have to do is walk it over there! See that concrete barrier in the way? It's called a "Jersey Wall" and it's quite illegal to run over there and hop over it. Also, not safe at all since there's cars driving super-fast on both sides, too.

So. We have to carry the tire all the way down to that intersection, cross at the crosswalk, and walk all the way back. Welcome to New Jersey! It looks far, and I guess it kind of is, but we managed to walk there and back to the Mavis in about ten minutes.

The tire wasn't too heavy, but have you ever carried something that's kind of not heavy for ten minutes straight? It's still exhausting. By the end, it was rather heavier than it seemed. They were nice enough to fill it up for free. I felt a little bad for not giving them a tip, but it was still a Mavis and they'd be getting tire money out of us tomorrow.

Whew! More exhausted for the other ten minute walk back to the car, but finally nearing the end of this nightmare! Just another minute to get the good spare tire back on the car!

Got a picture of the clock to stamp the time. The first picture we took was at 3:23. So this whole adventure was less than an hour. We were near the mall and kind of wanted to go still, but that's not the best idea. If something happened on the way home, we'd like some daylight to deal with it, so straight home we go. 

Yeah, we were a half hour away. It seemed like longer because we were half-expecting the spare tire to go flat again. Maybe it had a slow leak? well, the worrying was over and we are safely home. Whew!

Safe at home with the tire in the back, we get some pliers and pull the thing out, because we're curious, of course. Look at the size of this thing! How did that even get in the tire?! The bolt is huge! We don't touch it, but instead place it in a plastic zip bag. Just in case it's like, haunted or whatever. There's plenty of haunted-street stories around New Jersey, how else could we explain how this thing got in the tire?

Sigh. The spare "donut" looks tight. Tomorrow we'll go get a fresh one. Oh, you think this is the end of the story? 

We drop off the car and go to lunch nearby, but they call us up and say "um, yeah, we can't use the old rim, it's gotta hole in it." Bwah?! Yeah. That BANG BANG BANG noise was not the bolt hitting the street, but was instead the tip of the bolt pounding on the rim, which eventually was punctured. How much for a new RIM?!

Well the Mavis could only order new rims at $450. They guy told me I could probably google-up a cheaper one online somewhere, so I did just that, while in the Mavis. They were cool about it. We did the math and overall I saved $190 by doing that. So... yay? Still.... ugh.

You're not really supposed to drive around on "the donut" spare tires, so I was semi-stranded at home for a few days waiting for the rim to arrive. A little odd mix of feeling like you're home sick, without being sick. Or snowed in, without any snow. When you drive everywhere, but can't for a few days, it's just strange.

Well, here it is! Fresh refurbished rim. We ordered it on Monday and it showed up on Wednesday, not bad! Mavis told us we could go in that day and they'd have it done "by the end of the day" but we made another appointment for the next day so we wouldn't have to wait at all, and grab another lunch nearby anyway.

Finally! The tire was almost free with the warranty, but they still charged the other fees like instillation and disposal. Including the rim, the total cost was around $350. Thanks, Ghost Bolt! Mavis was classy and even transferred over the Honda logo piece in the middle of the rim! So that was cool. Oh, you think THIS is the end of the adventure? Um, yeah, it is!

One last picture with a close-up of the damage to the rim, because we know you'd be curious about that. It looks like those long scratches are from the initial bumpity-bumps, which weren't that loud, and then the other damage is when the bolt went straight-up and started to hammer the rim directly. What a trooper! Looks like it took a lot of hits before it poked through, even though we didn't travel very far on it.