Grr! Why I hate cars...
Sep. 25th, 2005 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoWent out yesterday morning to go grocery shopping. Flat tire. Well, this one has been slowly losing air for at least a couple of months. I've been topping it up weekly and putting off doing anything about it. The vehicle has been plagued with this problem for a couple of years now. Last fall I put four new tires on hoping to resolve it, even though the existing ones only had 66000 miles on them. They were, after all, eight years old. I don't do a huge amount of driving, only what I have to.
I've concluded that the wheel rims themselves are leaky, and debated whether to put inner tubes into the tires or replace the wheels. Rust is the culprit, from the stupid quantities of salt dumped on city streets in this area. In Chicago the salt drifts are often deeper than the snow was, all because everyone believes Jane Byrne won her election when the Bilandic administration didn't respond effectively to a blizzard back in 1979. (As if salt were a cure for snow. It just makes slush of it.) Anyway, I've been trying to convince myself to trade the vehicle (1997 Jeep Cherokee Sport) for something more efficient but I'm reluctant to give it up. I like the 4 wheel drive in winter, and it has adequate headroom for me.
It was 9:45 am when I found the problem. I could put off the grocery expedition, but was supposed to meet people for lunch in Woodstock at noon. I have a full-sized spare tire, and we have good tire changing tools in the barn (better than the chintzy ones they give you in a vehicle these days, anyway.) So I went hunting for the good jack, a jackstand, and the big + shaped tire iron. Took longer to find them than I liked, but eventually I had them in hand. It occurred to me that I might delay the whole thing if the tire would hold air for even a day or so, and I got the cordless air pump too. No luck. It was leaking as fast as I could pump air into it. Must have run over a nail or something.
Loosened the lug nuts a half turn, hunted for a suitable jack point (there are none on the driver's side front, apparently the engineers didn't think you'd ever get a flat tire there), blocked the right rear, raised the bad tire and removed the lug nuts. Text book case. Except.... the wheel won't come off.
Third time with this vehicle. Apparently it takes less than six months for the wheels to literally weld themselves to the brake rotors or drums under ordinary road conditions. The Chrysler dealer has remarked on how difficult it is to get the wheels off, and in fact I caught them once charging me for a tire rotation that they didn't actually perform because they couldn't get the wheels off. I went back and made them do it, marking the wheels secretly so I could tell for sure that it was done. They said they greased the wheels to prevent it from happening again. Six months later I decided to rotate my own tires, but couldn't get the wheels off to do it.
Last year I bought new tires. Had the Ford dealer in Harvard do them because he was more conveniently located and I'm now truly pissed at both Chrysler dealers in the area. Ford did mount my new tires, and remarked that the rims were hard to get off and very rusty. They cleaned them and greased the wheels again to prevent them from rusting in place. The new tires were on all right, and I know they had to get the wheels off to do it. That was eleven months ago. But, the wheel won't come off now.
I missed my lunch date. I kicked and cursed and pounded it with a mallet. I sprayed penetrating oil where I could reach without hitting the brakes, tap-tap-tapped it hoping that vibration would help, but never got it off. Then came the rain, and I left the car on the jack and shoved everything else into the garage. It's still sitting out there, mocking me this morning. Searched the web for tips, found that I've already tried all of them except "Lie under the car and kick the stubborn wheel with both feet to get it off." No thanks. I don't need to knock 2800 lbs. of vehicle off the jack and have it crash down on top of me. That's a solution I can do quite well without.
This morning I went back to the barn and got my ten pound log splitting maul. It has a three foot handle, though there's not room under there to really swing it. I'm about to go out and attack the stupid thing seriously. I figure the wheel was leaking and needs replacement anyway, and the tire appears to be a total loss too, so if I can keep from damaging the brake rotor or axle, anything is fair game. If you hear that a berserk man was locked away in Illinois for attacking his car with a sledge hammer you'll know I lost the battle.
Engineers know that these parts are exposed to much water, mud, and road salt. (I don't even do off-road driving.) Can't they use some alloy that won't seize up this way? Or put a layer of teflon in there, or something? In a roadside emergency instead of an overnight driveway failure, this would be downright dangerous. Grrr...
I've concluded that the wheel rims themselves are leaky, and debated whether to put inner tubes into the tires or replace the wheels. Rust is the culprit, from the stupid quantities of salt dumped on city streets in this area. In Chicago the salt drifts are often deeper than the snow was, all because everyone believes Jane Byrne won her election when the Bilandic administration didn't respond effectively to a blizzard back in 1979. (As if salt were a cure for snow. It just makes slush of it.) Anyway, I've been trying to convince myself to trade the vehicle (1997 Jeep Cherokee Sport) for something more efficient but I'm reluctant to give it up. I like the 4 wheel drive in winter, and it has adequate headroom for me.
It was 9:45 am when I found the problem. I could put off the grocery expedition, but was supposed to meet people for lunch in Woodstock at noon. I have a full-sized spare tire, and we have good tire changing tools in the barn (better than the chintzy ones they give you in a vehicle these days, anyway.) So I went hunting for the good jack, a jackstand, and the big + shaped tire iron. Took longer to find them than I liked, but eventually I had them in hand. It occurred to me that I might delay the whole thing if the tire would hold air for even a day or so, and I got the cordless air pump too. No luck. It was leaking as fast as I could pump air into it. Must have run over a nail or something.
Loosened the lug nuts a half turn, hunted for a suitable jack point (there are none on the driver's side front, apparently the engineers didn't think you'd ever get a flat tire there), blocked the right rear, raised the bad tire and removed the lug nuts. Text book case. Except.... the wheel won't come off.
Third time with this vehicle. Apparently it takes less than six months for the wheels to literally weld themselves to the brake rotors or drums under ordinary road conditions. The Chrysler dealer has remarked on how difficult it is to get the wheels off, and in fact I caught them once charging me for a tire rotation that they didn't actually perform because they couldn't get the wheels off. I went back and made them do it, marking the wheels secretly so I could tell for sure that it was done. They said they greased the wheels to prevent it from happening again. Six months later I decided to rotate my own tires, but couldn't get the wheels off to do it.
Last year I bought new tires. Had the Ford dealer in Harvard do them because he was more conveniently located and I'm now truly pissed at both Chrysler dealers in the area. Ford did mount my new tires, and remarked that the rims were hard to get off and very rusty. They cleaned them and greased the wheels again to prevent them from rusting in place. The new tires were on all right, and I know they had to get the wheels off to do it. That was eleven months ago. But, the wheel won't come off now.
I missed my lunch date. I kicked and cursed and pounded it with a mallet. I sprayed penetrating oil where I could reach without hitting the brakes, tap-tap-tapped it hoping that vibration would help, but never got it off. Then came the rain, and I left the car on the jack and shoved everything else into the garage. It's still sitting out there, mocking me this morning. Searched the web for tips, found that I've already tried all of them except "Lie under the car and kick the stubborn wheel with both feet to get it off." No thanks. I don't need to knock 2800 lbs. of vehicle off the jack and have it crash down on top of me. That's a solution I can do quite well without.
This morning I went back to the barn and got my ten pound log splitting maul. It has a three foot handle, though there's not room under there to really swing it. I'm about to go out and attack the stupid thing seriously. I figure the wheel was leaking and needs replacement anyway, and the tire appears to be a total loss too, so if I can keep from damaging the brake rotor or axle, anything is fair game. If you hear that a berserk man was locked away in Illinois for attacking his car with a sledge hammer you'll know I lost the battle.
Engineers know that these parts are exposed to much water, mud, and road salt. (I don't even do off-road driving.) Can't they use some alloy that won't seize up this way? Or put a layer of teflon in there, or something? In a roadside emergency instead of an overnight driveway failure, this would be downright dangerous. Grrr...
