Crap...

So during lunch I went to the post office to send something I sold. I picked up flat which unfortunately damaged the side wall so it can't be patched. Just to make things a little better they don't make that tire any more.

I've only had one flat in my life, amazing for a 40-year old dude huh?
How I'll pick up 8 flats the next time I leave my driveway.

I got three flats (only time ever) in one week. I nearly had an aneurism

I hate to think of the number of flats I had when I had a sportbike.

My worst one was a railroad spike. Through the center of the tread and out the sidewall. It didn't take that one long to leak down.

After hurricane Hugo, I was plugging 2-3 a week for months.

In ...well, let's say A LOT of years driving, I've had between 6 and 10 flats. Many of the flats were "found" after the car had been sitting a few hours (no idea how/when the tire went flat). I had abot 2 or 3 while driving on bias ply tires (and unlike radials, you can REALLY hear it when you have a bias ply going flat). Only had 1 or 2 in the rain (which is the real pits) and for one of those I had a cop stop within minutes offering help. I told him it wasn't necessary as there was no reason for 2 of us to get soaked...and it was really pouring.

Had a flat once in my car and found the temporary spare was flat, too. The person I had loaned my car to also had a flat (DIDN'T replace the tire with the same "model" of tire, but instead found some "el cheapo" tire to replace the flat with) and didn't mention that the spare was flat.

I can't quite remember my last flat, but have made it a habit to check EVERY car I buy now for all the tire changing equipment. When I bought my Integra about 10 years ago, I found out after the sale that there was no jack handle or lug wrench...and on a Honda product, the jack handle is a long piece of collapsible metal tubing...not something everyone carries as a spare tool.

I remember after Hurricane Andrew, there were tire repair trailers all over the place, all busy.

Mine went flat in a matter of a couple minutes. The good news is it was right by a tire place so I pulled straight in...

a couple years ago i heard a funny sound from the rear and found a 6mm allen key stuck in the tire, short end in the tire, long end whipping around and smacking the ground. unfortunately it was too damaged to add to my box.

Toyman01 wrote: My worst one was a railroad spike. Through the center of the tread and out the sidewall. It didn't take that one long to leak down. After hurricane Hugo, I was plugging 2-3 a week for months.

Happened to me like that when the apartment complex I lived in decided to put a new roof on the building. As if it wasn't bad enough that I was on Overnights then, and the hammering kept me awake all day..

I grew up in Ocean City, NJ. All through the 80s and 90s was a BIG housing boom. They were tearing down older big homes and building McMansions as fast as they could. Some would be framed out in less than a day.

We were ALWAYS patching flats done by roofing nails

A friend of mine managed to insert a rusty old pair of pliers into a rear tractor tire. In the field. He shoulda bought lotto tickets that day.

friedgreencorrado wrote:

Toyman01 wrote: My worst one was a railroad spike. Through the center of the tread and out the sidewall. It didn't take that one long to leak down. After hurricane Hugo, I was plugging 2-3 a week for months.

Happened to me like that when the apartment complex I lived in decided to put a new roof on the building. As if it wasn't bad enough that I was on Overnights then, and the hammering kept me awake all day..

That reminds me of the time I was at a service station at the base of the Cooper River Bridge. A roofing truck pulled in and the driver told the station owner he owed him a tank of gas. The station owner asked why. The roofers response? For the 50# box of roofing nails that fell off his truck in the middle of the 2 mile long bridge. He said it hit the road and exploded everywhere. Needless to say I avoided that bridge for a month.

With no median, no emergency lane, 12" curbs and only 2 - 12' lanes, that's a lot of flat repairs.

My girlfriends roommate had one this morning. I go to look at it, wondering if it will hold air to the tire shop if I try to use my compressor. I look at it. I had never seen a tire this badly corded.

Try to use the compressor anyways, no go. Take it off, put on spare, go with her to the tire shop (her family isn't really helpful and she knows nothing) to buy some used tires for the car. Turns out that the yahoo at wherever they had the wheels repaired had welded the thing. By federal law, that is illegal. Fun times ahead for her.

Oh, BTW... Anybody who has 2 (or 4) 5x100 wheels for a Chrysler Sebring convertible, preferably with tires, for a decent (read: Cheap) price in central Illinois, let me know.

The weirdest one I ever saw was a pushrod from (I think) a SBC through the tread and sidewall both.

Toyman's roofing nail story reminded me of one afternoon when I was filling up and I heard this scraping/rattling sound from the busy 4 lane road in front of the station. I watched a 5 gallon bucket sliding by and spinning, flinging roofing nails everywhere. I went home via the back roads, added probably 3 miles to my trip, and avoided the area for about a week.