The Tire and the Blessings

Yesterday afternoon ended up being a much bigger adventure than I'd anticipated. JM had experienced a slow start with his car a day or so earlier when leaving work. It was time for an oil change anyway. The car also rode a bit rough since we bought it a couple of months ago and we had been talking about trying a tire rotation to see if that solved the problem. So, the time had come. JM scheduled an oil change and tire rotation and asked them to check the battery, starter, etc for any obvious problems.

He took my car to work and at 12:30, I had his car at the repair shop less than a mile from our house. (To add to this story, please remember that he has a manual transmission in his car, I've only driven this car one other time, and I've never driven a manual transmission in Leesburg.) The appointment went largely as expected. The head of the drain plug had been partially stripped some time previously, so I gave them permission to go ahead and replace it. The battery, starter, and alternator all checked out as fine.

Around 1:50, I was headed back home. I started picking up speed (getting up to 25 or so in town) after the first stop light just outside the repairshop. I was thinking, "Well, the tire rotation certainly didn't help the rough ride. This may be even worse with extra noise." I stopped at a second stop light and as I began going again I decided, "Something is definitely not right." And then I felt and heard the left rear of the car hit the ground. Pulling to a stop in the right-hand side of the lane, I watched the tire roll past and come to rest in a lane of traffic heading the opposite direction. (This is a 5-lane road--2 lanes in each direction plus a center turn lane. No shoulder or parking space.)

Before I made it out of the car, a lady (who saw what happened while fueling her truck), headed across the street to retrieve the tire for me. She then called the police to get help with traffic while I called the repair shop to get help with the tire. Within a few minutes, there was a deputy there who parked her car behind mine and turned on her lights, to make my disabled vehicle more obvious. About the same time, two guys from the repair shop arrived with a jack. They had to call for someone to bring them some lug nuts, so another vehicle arrived in another couple of minutes. TGM and I rode back to the repair shop in one of their vehicles while one of the guys drove our vehicle back to inspect it more closely for damage and why the tire came off.

Shortly after we all got back to the repair shop, the owner arrived. He had been called from Round Hill where he had been attending a program at his daughter's school. He was very apologetic, making sure that TGM and I were ok and working with the technicians to try to figure out what happened. They found that there was some rust on the inside rim of the tire, so they believe that the rust kept the tire from mounting properly on the hub. Thus, even though the technician believed he tightened the lug nuts, when the car was driven the tire slipped on the hub and the lug nuts loosened and fell off.

The owner and the technicians worked to do what they could. The rust was polished off and a lubricant applied to the rim. They took the car out for a test drive before turning it back over to me.

As difficult as the afternoon was, there were several points where God obviously was protecting and taking care of us.

• The second stop light that I stopped at is one that is practically never red--it's strictly a pedestrian crossing that I've only stopped at a handful of times in the entire time I've been driving in Leesburg. But because of that stop, I was probably traveling at less than 10 mph when the tire fell off.
• The lady who was there to retrieve the tire and call the police has spent 19 years with the rescue squad and knows many of the officers in the area, including the one who came to the scene.
• Even though I was stopped not too far around a curve, no other vehicles hit our car or were hit in trying to get around us. There were also no accidents caused by the tiring rolling across the road and sitting in the other lane of traffic until it was retrieved.

And I don't know what it's worth, but I believe this is the second time I've been in a vehicle when a tire was lost. The first time being when I was much younger and was riding with Dad (and a couple of other people) in a wheat truck.

When I'm around, beware of explosions and check your tires.