Tyred

Posted by El Draper
on Mar 15, 08
While driving home after picking my wife up yesterday, about two minutes away from our house, we suddenly had a loud banging noise start up, and immediately we both thought "flat tyre". I pulled over as soon as was possible, and took a look around the car. It had already got dark, and I couldn't see anything obviously wrong with any of the tyres. None of them were flat, that was for sure. I took a look under the car, still nothing. It was obvious there was something wrong, and I thought it had to be tyre related, as the noise quickened slightly if I got a few miles per hour faster, and slowed as I slowed down. I drove home at around 10 mph, letting people pass where I could, and then we took another look at the car.



My wife noticed a hissing noise from the right rear tyre, and it became obvious that it was that tyre that had a puncture - however it must have only just happened, as it wasn't yet flat at all. After a bit of investigation with the help of a flashlight, we found the culprit - what appeared to be a screw or bolt in the tyre. As it was already late, I left it until today to sort it out - I ran the tyre into a local place to see if it could be repaired, as the screw/bolt had gone in straight in the center of the tyre, and not on either side, so I was hoping the tyre itself and outer walls were largely intact.



It turned out it was irreparable, and this is the reason why:







What you see in that picture is a bolt, around four or five inches long, the kind that are used in door handles. It wasn't obvious from the outside how big it was, but with the tyre off of the wheel, you can see just how big an item it was. Somehow it went in dead straight, and considering the speed I was traveling at when I picked it up (around 35 mph), it was fairly lucky that no further damage was done. It was also lucky that we weren't too far from home. However what that bolt was doing in the middle of the road, and how exactly it got wedged the way it did, I don't know - the guys at the local tyre place seemed fairly amazed by it too!
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  1. Mitchell Blankenship – Mar 17 08 @ 09:06AM
    My wife and I work for a RV manufacturer. We pick up screws and bolts on a daily basis. The local tire place knows us by name as a matter of fact and often times doesn't charge us for small repairs. I feel your pain as I have two tires on my SUV right now. One had a 3" self tapping screw in it and the other had two of the same screws. It's good though that it didn't completely blow and make the car uncontrollable.
  2. edraper – Mar 17 08 @ 09:22PM
    Thanks for your comment. Ah I guess it's a hazard of the job for you then! But yeah, I think that had the bolt not gone in completely straight, it could have shredded the tyre, and that certainly wouldn't have been nice to deal with. Fairly lucky really.<br><br>I've tried to find out today who is responsible for sweeping the local roads, to see how often they are swept (the road I picked the bolt up on is one of the main routes on the way to the local dump for a lot of the local area, so should be swept more regularly than most). I was told that no-one has a responsibility for sweeping the road itself, only the gutter/verge. I was also told that this is "where most of the stuff in the road ends up anyway" - except for the bolt that ended up in my tyre of course!
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