One Wild Night

I have A LOT of catching up to do. The weekend of the 10-11th, Joe and I went to the upstate to stage my house for an appraisal for my refinancing. On the way home I was about 3 miles ahead of Joe, cruising at 75-ish, just past Orangeburg (i.e. - I'm in the middle of the boonies), and I hit something in the road - hard. I immediately got over b/c I KNEW I had blown my tire. I immediately called Joe so that he wouldn't pass me.

So we unload my trunk to get out my spare and tire iron, etc. Well, needless to say this wasn't your ordinary tire change.

See... I got all new tires back in March - and wouldn't you know it - the bolts where on TIGHT!!!

How tight? You might ask. Let's see, we broke not one but TWO lug wrenches. Before we broke the second one, Joe tried using the wieght of the car to help. Let's just say that they were on so tight that it LIFTED my Camry off the ground. After that, we finally called 911 who directed us to *HP who directed us to another number (which was closed), so we called *HP back to see if we could get a trooper out.

By the time the nice trooper came, we had already been out there 2 1/2 HOURS! He (THANK GOD) had one of the 4-lug wrench. The kind tha tlook like an X. It took Joe pulling up and the trooper JUMPING UP AND DOWN on the wrench in order to get the lug bolts off. Luckily they weren't stripped or broken.

They put the tire on and it was flat! (excellent) So the trooper gave me permission to drive down the shoulder the two miles to the truck stop down the way. Had we know that there was a truck stop two miles down the way - I would have sent Joe for another wrench way before that.

So our normal 3 hour trip to 6 hours to get from the upstate back home to beautiful Charleston.

So - what shoudl everyone learn from this leasson??? Make sure that Firestone or whoever, backs off your bolts a 1/4 turn when they screw them on with the torque guns. AND always have a Cross style lug wrench in your car. Wal-mart has them for $7.