Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

My tires told me ’screw you’ last night. Literally. I have a screw stuck in one of the tires. I *THOUGHT* I heard something funny driving from work to happy hour last night but I wasn’t sure. As I was leaving the restaurant, I needed to fuel up so I stopped at a Shell (and got gas for $2.93).

My father was an auto mechanic and taught me very little about cars, but the few things he taught me are these:

When you stop for gas:
1) Check your oil and top off if necessary.
2) Check your wiper fluid and fill that too.
3) Walk around the car, check your lights, look for new dents, dings/scratches.
4) Look at the tires to see if you need air.
5) Clean your windows.

To do all this, my dad gave me paper funnels, a jug of wiper fluid and my very own squeegee! My daddy loves me! Of course, I only do these things some of the time, but I do it when I am likely to need it, i.e. check the oil level when I’ve gone over 2K miles. But I always, always, ALWAYS walk around the car while it fills up. I have had bad luck with my tires from the get-go because my car was installed with the infamous Firestone tires that were recalled.

While I was tanking up, I took my regular walk and to my horror, I saw the front passenger tire was flat. Not completely flat, but not that far from the rims. The sidewalls were definitely squished. I saw there was a large screw stuck in the tread. After the gas pump was finished, I drove over to the air pump and filled the sucker up completely. Not long ago my friend pointed out a bubble in the sidewall of the same tire, but that didn’t seem to be related to the tread puncture.

I drove to my regular knitting meeting, not too far away, and let the car sit for about 2-3 hours. I wanted to see how quickly it would go flat to determine if I had to take care of this tomorrow or the day after. After resting, the tire didn’t seem to deflate a lot, so I drove home and started researching tire replacement. Since I live very close to a Goodyear retailer, I decided that maybe I should do this right away.

I called a friend who is very good with cars and he knows I have started hating my car. He also knows that I’m making an effort to be frugal. So he asked me how long I wanted to keep the car. I told him at least 3 years or till I have to replace the clutch again. He advised me to save money by getting two new tires put on the rear axle and rotate the rear tires to the front. He then said to drive them for another year and then replace the two old tires. I take his advice with a grain of salt because he drives very fast on V-rated tires and I’m feeling more cautious than that. (I’ll explain that in a minute.)

Currently, the tires are at 41K miles with a limited 50K-mile warranty. I hate driving my car. I feel like I could get much nicer tires and end up loving my car once more if it handled and cornered better. My friend tells me that I probably have H-rated tires vs his V-rated ones. I look this up. That means I can go 130mph on my H-rated tires, and he can go up to about 149mph because he is a speed demon. Good to know. I won’t be needing V-rated tires. No sirree, not since VA passed the new fines for traffic violations.

Being a compulsive paper saver, I have the original receipt for my tires. I know that one of the tires has been plugged at least once. I’m not sure which tire it is though. After that occurred, I saw the fine print that I have a free flat repair service which I seem to have purchased for free or included in the total cost of my tires. I guess I took advantage of that, and it seems like I’ll take advantage of it again.

So the morning action plan:
1) Call the local Goodyear retailer and price the new H-rated tires I want.
2) Call the tire service company I used before and price the same tires.
3) Ask them if they will try to repair my tire first.
4) Kick myself for not taking my laptop home with me so I can work from home. (Because for a second at the end of the day, I did think about this.)

Hopefully this will not waste all my time today since I am also leaving work early for a dental appointment on Thursday.

Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Boy am I glad I have an emergency fund!