My last tyre punctured incident was back in 2012. https://miniliew.org/2012/08/29/tyre-exploded/
Today, 7 years later, while sending kids to their badminton class, I got a curb and again, my tyre exploded and punctured.
At first the car still can drive for a while but there is an obvious incline of the entire car to the right. Later the car sensor confirms the low tyre pressure. That is when I decided to make a u-turn and park at the school gate of Nan Hua Primary school to try to change the tyre.
I think this would be my fourth time changing the tyre myself.
Not a big deal but just need to figure out how to uncap the cap, unscrew the screws and how to use the car jack.
Here are some thoughts about punctured tyre incidents.
1. Make the wise decision of to change the tyre yourself or wait for help arrive. Of course this decision is easy. If the punctured tyre is a right side tyre, then I strongly advise to call for help from AAA. Because it is usually very dangerous to change the tyre on the right of the car where there are cars driving passed you each time. If it happens on the express way or highway, I also recommend to call for help. Because I remember the news of people died because car bang into stationary car on highway. :). So it all depends on the situation.
2. Be alert when you here different sounds or noise that you not used too. Some times you are not aware of a punctured tyre but it does make some noise due to unbalance wheels alignment. At this point you need to be careful so that not to continue driving the car and hurt the beam alignment in the car.
3. Sometimes if don’t know how to use the car Jack, where to place it? It all come down to common sense. Dirty your hand and feel underneath the car, find the hardest beam to jack the car. Don’t simply anyhow just put the jack underneath and start the jack up process. Sometimes miss alignment can cause more problem. Furthermore there are Google you can ask.
4. For me, I like to remember which screw goes to which hole. Now the screws up with the holes, may introduce wear off.
5. Please remember a spare tyre is for temporary usage only. For my car spare tyre, it advised not to drive it at more than 80km/h. So remember to drive your car to the workshop as soon as possible.
6. Of course it depends on luck if your spare tyre got enough air inside or not. If not enough then try not to be gung-ho and drive it for long distance.
7. Tyre usually comes in pair. So most likely you going to change two tires to make it balance.
Ok done! Let’s drive the car back home which is 700 meter away. And take my wife car to sent the kids. Jay was having fun observing every action I took to change the tyre.
