Monday, March 8, 2010

Pinchazo Pt. 3

For some reason my truck has a real problem with flats. I think I pick up nails when I take my trash to the dump.

When I got home I was shown that one of my rear truck tires had gone flat. I asked how long it had been like this since I was talking to Quincho every week checking on the house. We have friends here who could have come by to get it fixed so the truck didn't sit on a flat tire on one side. He said about 2 months!

So the first thing to do once I got back was to get transportation. I couldn't get the Blazer started after hooking back up the battery, but that was because it was out of gas, even after leaving it with a full tank 5 months before. My truck tires weigh 70 pounds each and it is hard to move a flat tire (especially when one side is actually flat from having a truck sitting on top of it for 2 months).

I wrestled it down the three blocks to the highway where I flagged a tuk tuk to take me to the tire repair place, who worked on it while I took my gas can to the gas station. Once I got back the guy had it aired up, and charged me Q20 ($2.50). He said it was just the inside seal that needed to be fixed.

The next day it was flat again, so I took it to a different place where they immediately found the nail and put in a patch for Q30 ($4) without even taking the tire off. My dad was with me and we had never seen anybody do it this way before, but the guy assured me that his patch would last longer than the tire would. So far so good.

2 comments:

  1. I know why you didn't tell me that whole story. I'm still laughing picturing you rolling that 70 lb tire down our dirt road;)
    ~Shelley

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  2. We have the same problem with our moto . . . a flat tire every 2-3 days! We just patch it, too and the patches hold up just fine, though we keep punching new holes it the tire.

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