Last night the family loaded into the family car (ok station wagon) and headed out for Ottumwa to have Thanksgiving at GJ's house. Pretty straightforward - right? Should take about 2 hours, but with a bit of snowfall we were prepared for it to take a bit longer, but not nearly as long as it ended up taking!! Between Williamsburg and Belle Plaine our car started making a funny noise. At first we thought it could just be the snow covered road. Ah, wishful thinking. As the noise suddenly got worse, and as S reports, the car started pulling to the right we reluctantly pulled over. Upon inspection the front right tire had blown. S industrially pulls out the donut and starts changing the tire while I pulled out the insurance cards to try and contact our Emergency Roadside Assistance. With a bit of help S got the jack under the car and we were thinking it would be smooth sailing to finish changing the tire, when there was a setback. The aluminum lug nut wrench cracked when trying to remove an especially tight nut. When S would apply pressure to it now it would simply spin because it would separate. Good thing ERS was working on finding us a hero. The rest of the story is pretty boring. Sit for 1 hour while ERS calls around to find someone. Sit for 45 minutes for the guy to get here. Sit for 15 more minutes while he changes the tire. I will say that for that especially tight nut he had to go back to his truck and get a wrench with about 2 to 3 feet of leverage to get the torque to move that nut! Thanks BJ's towing! Kevin we appreciate you!
Lessons learned? Have a 4 way lug wrench in your car - don't count on the crappy factory one. (Technically V learned this lesson years ago in car care awareness class, (Thanks Cassill Motors) and she told S to buy her one. He didn't.)
Also you know those mile markers that have posts with reflectors between them? Well those posts have the mile marker on them as well. So if you are on the side of the road just find a post and you will know exactly where you are. They are every 300 feet so you wont even have to walk very far.
I'll update with a picture of the tire later - Happy Thanksgiving!!!
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