Bad day

[imported_CZ_R]

Hey all! I thought I'd share a little story with you.

Sunday morning, 1am: My roommate Scott and I start our journey to Minneapolis to pick up a friend of mine from the airport. It's about a 5 hour drive (one way).

We're jammin' right along makin' good time. His plane is scheduled to land at 6am, so we were in no hurry. Get to Fargo, fill up with gas, get some munchies & we're back on the road.

Around 4am somethin' in the road catches my eye. I was doin' about 80 (in a 70) and it looked like an animal of some sort. Uh, no, it was no animal. That was quite obvious when I hit it.

So we pull over, check the tire and yeah, it's flat. DAMN. Good thing I had my spare & all the neccessary tools with us cuz I usually don't. So, we put the rim from the back onto the front, and the "doughnut" on the rear. I also had to raise my coilover on that one corner ALL THE WAY up so the car would sit right.

Anyway, an hour or so later we finally finish. It was too dark to see if the rim was damaged, and it just looked like I broke the bead on the inside of the tire.

So we get in the car, relax a minute, and before we get a chance to resume our voyage a cop pulls up behind us. All his lights are flashin', and he's just sittin' in his car behind us for what seemed like forever. Finally he comes up to the window, flashes his flashlight RIGHT INTO my eyes and asks what the problem is.

We explained our situation and he asked to look at our licenses. So we gave 'em to him and as he's walking back to his car he asks me if there's "any reason" that my car has North Dakota license plates, and I have a (very expired) California driver's license. I explained that I'm in the military and I doubt he even heard me.

So he sits in his car again for about 10 minutes. Comes back and asks if we're gonna try to make it to Minneapolis. I told him 'no', we're going back home. (How dumb am I really? To try & drive another 600 miles on a doughnut??). Then he asks if I want a wrecker. This cop had no idea that he was out of his mind.

For one, I'm not gonna find a 205/40-17 in the middle of Nowhere, Minnesota. And two, there would be WAY too much work involved to get my car on the back of a wrecker. No thanks.

To make a long story a little shorter... We limped back home. And let me tell ya, when you've got 3 coilovers all the way down, and one all the way up the car handles REALLY weird!! So I was definitely not speeding.

So anyway, we get back safe. The rim is in fact bent (but not too bad) and when I went to have the tire reseated I got the worse news. The damn thing is cracked too. Just my luck.

The morale of the story? Don't go on a road trip unless you have a regular stock rim to use as a spare. OR, at least raise the car up a little so IT absorbes the shock instead of the rim/tire. At least that's what I learned.

The good news is that I'm rollin' on '00 Si wheels now. That is until I can either get the 17 fixed, or see if my insurance company will hook me up (I'm not holding my breath).

So, in closing, for those of you that aren't asleep yet :-). Thanks for reading this far.
Be safe every-1.

Laterz,
Russ

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*soon to be B16 powered*
Gold '90 h/b - with mods ;-)

[Ladynredsi]

ugh! Russ, I AM SOOO SORRY! you are one of the nicest/ coolest people i have met in a while.

one time an "x" of mine put a nail in my tire because he didn't want my sis & i to go out (some nerve, eh?). my sis & i ended up putting on the spare and bolting anyway. we had to jump on the freeway for a minute. it was 10 pm, no traffic so we cruised between 45-50 mph in the slow lane. a female cop pulled us over and (i still can't believe this) asked me why I was going so slow. i told her to take another look and I was on my way. i know all too well about the ugly handeling. Oh yeah.....i ended up making the bastard buy 4 new tires : )

i know.....i babble too much......LOL

Ami

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"You don't impress me, Ford boy"

[thirdgod]

Damn that sux!

I've never had a tire burst on a road trip, but I DID have a CV joint go out on me when I was going to pick up my g/f about 400 miles away. Long story short, I ended up having the car towed almost 100 miles to her place, and then renting a U-haul to tow it back home.....talk about bad timing....

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91 Si. B16A. Contents Under Pressure.