The car I drive now doesn’t even have a spare tire. Can you believe that? I was suitably enamored with the vehicle to buy it anyway, though. I guess I was lulled into the justification that the manufacturer craftily presented, which went something like this: “Oh, you probably won’t be needing a spare anyway, and well, nobody changes their own tires today, it seems, and everybody has a cell phone to call ‘someone’ just in case. (And besides, we couldn’t find a good place to put it since the hybrid battery takes up the space where we’d normally put the spare.)”
Hmmm.
It got me thinking. It doesn’t seem like too long ago that you wouldn’t dare drive anywhere without a serviceable spare tire at the ready. I mean, as a kid in a family of six, always coming and going near and far in a variety of oddball vehicles, we were dealing with tire “issues” all the time.
Some of my earliest memories are of my dad fixing a flat on the side of some lonesome stretch of highway. Us kids hunkered inside the Volkswagen bus and peered out the windows at the show in progress. The jacking and the lug wrenching and the digging out of the spare and losing a lug nut and the distinctive sound of a hubcap dropped on the gravel shoulder. And the feel of the car lowered back to its haunches as the job was finished. My dad was a pro at it; he could change a tire in minutes. I was kidding about losing a lug nut.
Back on the road, Mom breathes a sigh of relief to get going again.
So yeah, dealing with tires – not to mention car things in general – held much more of our attention than it does now, and it was part of the fabric of everyday existence. Cars were not as predictable as they are today.
I began my education about tires and cars from an early age, and by the time I got my “learner’s” permit, my knowledge about such things had really jumped.
When I was growing up, Virginia state vehicle inspections were required every six months(!), and you know how quickly six months pass. It seems that we, as a family, were always hassling with getting one or another car to pass inspection. And I have a particularly intimate knowledge of the process because, for some reason, as soon as I possessed my driver’s license, I was the family’s designated get-car-inspected guy. I think that duty had something to do with my maintaining the privilege of driving the family cars.
Getting a car inspected was fraught with pitfalls. I alluded to the fact that our family cars were well-worn specimens, and under the scrutiny of a bored mechanic, anything could happen. On numerous occasions, I emerged from the inspection station with a “REJECTED” sticker on the windshield. Ugg. That decal stood out like a sore thumb, and you had to get the problem rectified as soon as possible.
Often, the state of the tires was the offense. Tread worn beyond the acceptable limit, for instance, due to my dad trying to get as much use out of a set of tires as possible. The rejection resulted in a flurry of activity to get better – not necessarily new – rubber on that particular auto and back to the inspection station. I did not much enjoy that.
So yeah, I was taught all about car maintenance in general and tires specifically as a teenager, but that doesn’t mean I was that diligent in doing so. On an early expedition during my youth, I was driving my ol’ Toyota Land Cruiser in the mountains of New Hampshire. It was nighttime in the depths of winter. One of the rear wheels unceremoniously fell off due to the loss of all its lug nuts. The wheel, then free, bounced its way across a field and into an ice-choked river, never to be seen again. And no, a car cannot be driven on just three wheels. This turned out to be the opening act of one of my “best” wheel adventures ever.
Losing lug nuts in such a spectacular fashion was and is rare, thankfully, but keeping proper air pressure in tires is a common concern, or face various negative consequences. I’m sure I was responsible for many a tire misadventure due to being inattentive to tire pressure. It’s easier to keep up with such things today. Not only do modern tires hold air better than they used to, but most newer cars have built-in tire pressure monitoring systems. How about that? But in the old days, it wasn’t at all uncommon to run outside in the morning to hop in the car and notice one of the tires had gone completely flat overnight. Rats. At my house, we had an ancient, very noisy air compressor at the ready in our garage. It was outfitted with a thirty-foot hose to help deal with such inconveniences. Anyway, tires were forever going low on air, and our cars always had a tire gauge or two in the glovebox or under the seat to help keep track of them.
In the wintertime, we used “snow tires.” We’ve gotten out of the habit of switching tires at the coming of winter and then back again in the spring, but that used to be the norm. Our garage was crammed with – among much else – tires of all descriptions fitted onto extra wheels for the different vehicles. At the change of seasons, there was a real assembly line of jacking cars and changing wheels in our driveway. The only thing missing was the loud whine of the air lug wrench used by the commercial garages.
And get this: my little sister and I were recently reminiscing about how we were responsible for the job of installing metal studs into some of the family snow tires to make them that much more up to the task of winter travel. Those “studded radials” were formidable.
In the winters of old, there was more snow in Roanoke. I loved that. More snow meant more driving in the stuff, and four-wheel-drive capability was uncommon. Besides the snow tire switcharoo with the change of the seasons, when the roads got really slick, we brought out the big guns: tire chains. These days, tire chains are still a normal part of winter driving in places like New England and the Rockies, especially on the big trucks. But the use of tire chains on passenger cars in Roanoke, Virginia, seems to have become a lost art.
To acquire the much-coveted driver’s license, my siblings and I were required by my dad to be able to demonstrate the single-handed installation of chains on one of the family vehicles. It was pretty straightforward to do that on the dry pavement of the driveway on a warm fall afternoon. Switch settings, however, to the gravel shoulder of a highway on a brutally cold, dark night, with passing traffic spraying half-frozen salty gunk on you. A little different story. Fun!
So yes, people, we’re lucky we don’t have to deal with as many car tire issues these days. It’s fallen off our radar a bit.
Recently, however, one of our sons and his wife were on their way to the airport for a vacation flight and – wouldn’t you know it – had a flat tire. Luckily, they were able to find the requisite jack and lug wrench, not to mention a spare tire, and change it themselves in time to make their flight. So let that be a reminder. You might not have time to wait for AAA.
So tell me, do you know where your jack, lug wrench, and spare tire are? Do you know how to use that stuff? And do you even have a spare tire?
Happy motoring!
John, “Johnny” Robinson is a native Roanoker. He’s a retired dentist, but a description of his life so far would include deep interests beyond providing dental care. He has been writing as a hobby since he was a boy, and is one of The Roanoke Star’s founding columnists. Married to Marybeth and the father of three sons, he remains fascinated with the curiosities of life. Travel, hiking, running, skiing, sailing, paragliding, playing guitar and piano have all captivated him.
