I had a couple cups of coffee with my gracious hostess as my host slumbered. We looked out at the currents in the estuary- fish, she said- and watched the ravens swoop at the little birds that were hitting the feeder. A desultory chill rain was coming down, and I was itching to get rolling and see if the field was going to be dry enough to not get the Turf Tiger stuck in the mud and complete the first cut of the season.
I was getting itchy to be moving, that John Wayne “Burning Daylight” thing, I guess. Adieus proffered, threw the bag in the passenger’s seat, punched the coordinates for the Farm into the GPS, fired up the Mercedes GLK350 and headed out to the Northern Neck of Virginia.
It is a haunting place. So old, for European America, and the people have roots in this rich soil that go back- some of them- four hundred years. Or maybe part of the haunting feeling was the red light that bathed the instrument panel. I was startled- the display is normally a businesslike Teutonic white. I don’t like it when the car yells at me- and this was a very stern admonition.
The Panzer was demanding my attention be paid to the right rear tire. It had alerted me to a potential problem coming back from the farm last week, and apparently the engineers in Stuttgard had determined that pressure below 30 PSI was critical. I swerved off RT 29 at the truck plaza at Opal, found four quarters in the well in the driver’s side door, and added five pounds of air. The car seemed happy, and that happiness last right through the trip south on Saturday to the oldest part of the Old Dominion.
This was nothing like that- overnight, the tire had lost twelve pounds of pressure, and the crimson number “18” shouted out at me. What the hell? It was fine when I shut it down and walked up to the house to watch the Caps lose to the Islanders and force game seven in the first round of the quest for Lord Stanley’s Cup the afternoon before, and the great time at Nate’s Trick Dog Café in picturesque Irvington.
The State inspection on the car was due for renewal in May, and I had a standing appointment for inspection and synthetic oil change scheduled already. All I had to do was get to the farm, get the chores done, get a good night’s sleep and get back up north.
Gas stations are sparse on the Neck, and serve as de facto village centers, normally with food and locals hanging around. I proceeded with caution, looking for the next likely one in a town called Lively. A Shell plaza appeared to have a working air pump, and I was relieved to have four shiny quarters to feed it and apply the nozzle of the filler tip to the valve on the tire.
I am still pissed at whoever broke into the car and stole Mom’s big leather pouch of state commemorative quarters. I was the king of meter parking and air pumps when I had that. Now, not so much. And I miss the prescription sunglasses that were stolen. Don’t get me started. I suppose I should be lucky I didn’t keep a pistol in the car and the theif had waited for me to return rather than going on his merry way.
I wasn’t sure how much air I was getting in, and the best I could get was about 24 PSI, so the red light stayed on. “Screw it,” I thought. I am definitely going to be done with this tire this week anyway. “Press on regardless!”
The rain pattered on the windshield and the GPS informed me it was 21 miles to Warsaw, gateway to Tappahannock on the other side of the broad Rappahannock River.
It was hard not to get fixated on the tire pressure display, and I marveled at the technology in tires and instruments. When I started driving, the only indication you had that a rear tire was low on pressure was when some helpful motorist at a light cranked down the window to give you the news that you were driving on a flat tire. “Doh!”
I made it to the turn toward the bridge and thing were holding at a steady red “24” right until they weren’t. Warsaw appears to have seen its better days. A lot of the storefronts are derelict, and commerce is mostly limited to antiques and curios advertised with hand-painted signs. Sad, really, though in the great scheme of things, not as sad as seeing the tire pressure go to “18” and begin flashing “16” and then “14” as it failed.
Crap.
I was downtown, and looking for a concrete pad on which I could park and change the tire. The surface for mounting the jack was crucial. Far better concrete or asphalt than on gravel, which could enable the jack to topple and descend abruptly on my hand or leg.
Up ahead I saw the long awning of another Shell, and pulled in slowly next to the air pump at the back of the black-top. “0.”
Well, there was some luck, even if it was raining.
I can remember the last time I had to change a tire- it was before 0600 in the dark on the Shirley Highway, heading toward the Pentagon. It was late Spring and I was in my Tropical Whites. Not a pretty sight by the time I was done. I have always been pretty anal about tires, and really was going to swap out all four this very week. But good intentions and all that were going to leave me with the chore of changing the tire in the chill rain in Warsaw, VA.
I am a guy, so I didn’t get around to reading the instructions until this morning. It wasn’t like growing up in Michigan we didn’t change the snow-tires every Spring and Fall, and we used to rotate the old bias-ply tires of the day all the time. Tires are so good these days they are virtually bullet-proof.
That was cold comfort this morning. I popped the hatch-back and then unloaded the go-bag and other crap that sat atop the spare tire compartment. On the GLK, there is a plastic tray that held what I later discovered was the Owner’s manual, the tool set from the first Mercedes I owned, a 1967 350SL, the first aid kit and the rotating blue light for the dashboard that was a left-over from our Undisclosed Location days after 9/11.
All that went to the back seat, and I got to the tire compartment and the jacking equipment. I am always impressed by the thoroughness of the Germans. The initial problem I noted, never having looked at any of it before, was that the instructions were in German. I looked in the glove box for English language instructions, but I had already thrown the zippered pouch that held them into the back seat.
“OK,” I said. “You used to do this all the time. Just use the muscle memory and don’t screw it up. You can always get new tires along the way to the farm.”
And so it began. There was no alternative to being on knees and butt. I got out the jack and the surprisingly short tire iron. Located the lifting point just forward of the right rear wheel-well. I screwed the nut on the end of the jack until the device scissored up just right against the frame.
“Loosen lugs first, so the stress of getting them backed out doesn’t collapse the jack,” I thought. The lug nuts that held the tire on had been applied with an impact air wrench, and they had not been touched since the tires were new. I found that the first step was going to be the hardest, and included a novel acrobatic maneuver of holding onto the roof rack and jumping on the end of the tire iron.
Being wet and cold added to the general mood of desperation. Eventually, I managed to get the lugs loose to the point that I could turn them by finger- did I mention the Germans had included a cheap pair of cloth gloves? They didn’t fit, since the thumbs were the same size as the pinky fingers, but I thought it was thoughtful.
Lugs loose. Now the part where there is the possibility of actual mayhem. I checked the jack again to ensure it had not shifted in the battle with the lug nuts. Looked good- and then the task of raising the right rear to the point that the flat tire had an inch or so of clearance underneath. Getting the spare of the trunk first, I noticed it was one of those fake inflato-tires, and I was delighted that I was parked next to what I sincerely hoped was a working air pump.
BTW, the Germans had included a cigarette-lighter air pump just in case this had occurred in the middle of nowhere. I also discovered a black ratchet wrench that made raising the jack almost easy. I was soaked now, so I didn’t mind being on hands and knees on the wet asphalt, and had the tire elevated to height that should enable me to remove the lugs, get the offending tire off, roll it out of the way, and slip on the spare.
A note here about cars. American iron used to have five long screws on which you slipped the wheel, and then massive nuts to tighten it on. The German cars have lugs that come all the way out of the hub assembly, which means a third hand would be really useful to get the first one seated properly.
I got organized. Spare to my right, a place to roll the flat out of the way and not have to move since the arthritis and damaged quad on the left leg made this much more challenging than it had been when I was twenty and full of piss and vinegar.
The lugs were loose and came out easily. The tire and wheel dropped off awkwardly into my lap. The car was now supported only by the jack, and that is the time to be hyper alert. I rolled the flat slowly away, seeing the problem: a four-inch stretch of the inner tread that was worn right down to the frayed silver steel mesh of the steel belt. “Crap.”
I wondered about the other tires as I rolled the skinny emergency tire over in front of the hub. I lifted it up and realized the German approach to lugs meant I had to wedge my shoe under the tire to keep it in position to try to locate the screw-holes on the hub assembly.
I got the lugs in and realized it wasn’t going to work. The lugs I had removed were long enough to accommodate a full size wheel, and this replacement wasn’t. “Oh, yeah. That might be why there are five other lugs in the trunk. Dumbass.”
The spare was at least aligned properly against the screw-holes, and I lurched to my feet, cursing under my breath as pain shot up from my knees. I got the replacement lugs from the toolkit, and sat on my butt in the puddled and replaced them one by one.
Finger tight first, then incremental tightening in a star pattern until a sharp tug on the tire-iron could move them no further. “Inflate to 41 PSI,” the lettering on the tire said, and I got some quarters and the air machine chugged to life.
This was fascinating. As pressure entered the replacement tire, it popped out in discrete folds. It was quite remarkable. I got to a hair over 40 PSI on the pressure gauge when the machine timed out, and I decided that would be enough. Only 90 miles or so to the farm, right?
I lowered the jack and stowed the support tools away in what looked generally like the places they were supposed to go. The flat on the wheel did not fit in the well, so I threw the rest of the junk where the spare had been and surveyed the area to see what I was going to drive off without.
At a limiting speed of 49 miles and hour, I would have plenty of time to think about it. What could go wrong?
It was a white knuckle trip but otherwise uneventful as I passed through the urban sprawl Fredericksburg, where the monuments of the great battle stand next to fast food parking lots and furniture stores. Then Chancellorsville, and Jackson’s Flank Attack, and his Wounding, and the site of his Amputation near the Wilderness battlefield.
Considering where I was, it was a much better day than those people had, and the skies began to show patches of blue. It was sunny and bright by the time I saw the bulk of Mount Pony ahead, and ducked off the main road to follow the blacktop lane to Refuge Farm.
Epilogue:
The pastures are all cut. That should buy me a week or two. When I went over to visit after the chores, I saw that the Russians have been busy, and I was amazed at the new fencing to keep Jack the Enormous German Shepard and Biscuit the Wonder Spaniel out of the road, and the new little chickens running around the big aluminum tub in the study under heat lamps, and the four new bee-hives in the back yard to replace the two that did not survive the fierce winter.
I particularly liked the “Beware of Dog” sign on the new fence. I think I need something like that real soon for my place. And maybe an actual dog, too.
Prologue:
Oh, and calls to the tire-stores in town indicate they do not have 235/50R19 tires in stock. I have to be back up north for a gig tomorrow, so I guess the adventure continues. Life in the country.
I will let you know how it goes.
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303