Monday, April 23, 2012

Modern Tire Changing – Engineers Don’t Change Tires

We purchased our first Ford Escape back in 2001, it was awesome so in 2010 we decided to purchase another one and it’s been a great car as well. That is until I had to change a tire this morning at 5:30am. Confused smile

The person(s) who designed the spare, the spare location, method of extracting said spare and then jacking up this SUV with that joke of a jack need to be fired. I can guarantee you who ever they are, they never had to use their own design. It’s a 2008 Escape with 46,000 miles on it now. The little bolt you stick the jack handle into the bumper to turn to lower the spare tire, is now rusted into place. So I spent a considerable amount of time breaking this little rusted bolt loose and lowering the tire. The whole time thinking why gosh Mr. Ford engineer, you have the entire inside of the hatch to put it, like it was when we got our first Escape safely tucked away but NO…… you redesign the thing so it’s now harder to do the job! Why re-design something that was fine to begin with??

A 15 minute job took almost an hour to do, honestly on the side of the road or in gravel, this would really suck the big one. Thankfully I changed the tire so Ronda could get to Ford, then work.

She gets to Ford and finds out this is a “special” sized tire, they don’t have it and of course it’s going to be at least $260.00 since the nail punctured two spots on the sidewall. Considering this is our first flat in 13 years, I guess we can’t complain but it would have been nice to have seen this yesterday so I could change it during the day instead of missing the train. I’m picking up a proper jack from NAPA on the way home, heck if I going through this again!

We have Good Sam which could have come out but we both missed work last week so couldn’t wait the amount of time it would have taken for them to show up. If we had bought the car new we could have just called Ford and they would have come right away and picked up the car and fixed it, but we bought used so no Ford road side. Lets see, 1 flat in 13 years, I’m ok with it.

Took the later train and still got to work by 8:45am, not too shabby! Need a nap though!

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7 comments:

Phyllis said...

Yup, the first flat in 13 years is quite a feat. Used to be I would change them myself. Another good benefit of having a hubby who does it. (First one told me it was my car, my problem. That's ok - I learned I could do it)

Hope your tomorrow will be off to be better start.

Bob said...

I've had those "discussions" with smart-assed engineers in the past.
Hopefully nobody was ever watching, or they would have seen my mean streak.

Erik's RV Blog said...

Phyllis - Sounds like you learned he was the wrong hubby as well! :)

Bob - I can honestly say this was an experience I'll never forget. Last tire I changed took me less than 10 minutes!

TexCyn said...

Note to self: Keep that roadside service...ugh!

JO said...

I keep seeing the add on TV for ford tire sales. they have them all and the sale is BIG! HHmmmm

Diana said...

Yeah it looks like you got the same crappy jack that I have in my 06 focus. Our problem was, no matter how hard we tried, we could not get it back in place the way they had it. We all tried. So now there is a lump there under the carpet!
But I can't really complain. I have 42,000 miles on it and I am still in love with my Focus wagon!
Love Di ♥

Erik's RV Blog said...

TexCyn - Turns out, we have Ford road side for her car as well. It was included for 60,000 miles... dammit.

JoJo - Yeah, I'm sure across the country they have all tires but no one store has everything. It only took them 2 hours to get one so thats good, why so expensive though, good grief.

Diana - Ronda gave the Ford dealer instructions to have one of their guys put everything back or face her husband wrath! :) The jack is back where it belongs.

I agree, we love the car as well even at 46,000 miles, and I used the jack out of my Ford which I have to figure out how to put back now as well. Ack.