July 25, 2005
Today was a day we have been waiting for but hoping would never come. After a nice breakfast, we packed our picnic lunch and headed east to Buffalo Bill Ranch Historical Park. We had driven a little over thirteen miles when we realized the thump thump thump noise we were hearing wasn’t the road. We pulled into a nearby scenic overlook and started checking under the car, under the hood and the tires. Richard found the problem. The front passenger side tire had a bulge coming from the tread. It was a ply separation and looked like it was growing. I haven’t changed a tire in the last 30 years but I still thought I knew how. It took a little while to figure out how to open the jack but Richard and I are smarter than average and opened it in under 10 minutes. Of course, that was after Charlotte and Vera said, “How about reading the owners manual”. After the jack was in place and the car off the ground, we proceeded to change the tire very quickly and easily. I should add at this point, I am not comfortable using the little “doughnut” that is called a spare.
After cleaning up and putting everything away, we looked up the phone number of a local repair shop in Chappell where we are staying. The man said he didn’t sell Goodyear tires but recommended we drive to nearby Sydney. He thought they could help us with the warranty on the tire. So off we go. It is only a 42-mile drive. We found the tire store in Sydney and this young fellow looked at the tire. He explained he couldn’t help us because even though he sells Goodyear tires occasionally, he cannot handle the warranty. He suggested we drive to Cheyenne and take it to the Saturn dealer or try an authorized Goodyear dealer. We called Saturn of Cheyenne and asked if they could help us. They checked and said they had the same tire in stock and would be glad to help us. It’s only about 100 miles so we headed for Cheyenne. The tire expert at Saturn checked the bad tire and said it should be replaced for free because it was defective. The other three were only two years old and he thought they would probably be OK. But, we could replace them if it would make us feel better. We talked about it for a while and came to the following conclusions. I don’t get excited about changing tires along the road. Neither Char nor I liked driving approximately 140 miles on the dinky doughnut spare. We didn’t feel comfortable towing the car with less than perfect tires. Lastly, that is why we have an emergency fund. So we bought three new tires to match the one he was giving us. Two and a half hours later we left the Saturn dealership and headed home in an extremely hard rainstorm. Our luck was about to improve. After thirty minutes the rain stopped and we had a nice drive back to our RV Park.
Our problem started about 9:30 this morning and we got home a little after 7:30 this evening. By the way, we didn’t get to Buffalo Bill Ranch Historical Park but we did enjoy our lunch in the car on the way to Cheyenne. Even with this problem, we still had a good day with our friends. At the end of the day, we are still happy, healthy and enjoying our journey with Richard and Vera. We only lost a little of our emergency fund.
After cleaning up and putting everything away, we looked up the phone number of a local repair shop in Chappell where we are staying. The man said he didn’t sell Goodyear tires but recommended we drive to nearby Sydney. He thought they could help us with the warranty on the tire. So off we go. It is only a 42-mile drive. We found the tire store in Sydney and this young fellow looked at the tire. He explained he couldn’t help us because even though he sells Goodyear tires occasionally, he cannot handle the warranty. He suggested we drive to Cheyenne and take it to the Saturn dealer or try an authorized Goodyear dealer. We called Saturn of Cheyenne and asked if they could help us. They checked and said they had the same tire in stock and would be glad to help us. It’s only about 100 miles so we headed for Cheyenne. The tire expert at Saturn checked the bad tire and said it should be replaced for free because it was defective. The other three were only two years old and he thought they would probably be OK. But, we could replace them if it would make us feel better. We talked about it for a while and came to the following conclusions. I don’t get excited about changing tires along the road. Neither Char nor I liked driving approximately 140 miles on the dinky doughnut spare. We didn’t feel comfortable towing the car with less than perfect tires. Lastly, that is why we have an emergency fund. So we bought three new tires to match the one he was giving us. Two and a half hours later we left the Saturn dealership and headed home in an extremely hard rainstorm. Our luck was about to improve. After thirty minutes the rain stopped and we had a nice drive back to our RV Park.
Our problem started about 9:30 this morning and we got home a little after 7:30 this evening. By the way, we didn’t get to Buffalo Bill Ranch Historical Park but we did enjoy our lunch in the car on the way to Cheyenne. Even with this problem, we still had a good day with our friends. At the end of the day, we are still happy, healthy and enjoying our journey with Richard and Vera. We only lost a little of our emergency fund.
posted by Ray at 10:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home