Being reliant on a car!

Realised today just how reliant we are on having to have a vehicle.

BD recently sold his LR Discovery, I have my Freelander 2 and MD has a Subaru Imprezza. When MD has rugby training he takes his car to school as he can't get the school bus and BD takes mine.

On the other days I take MD to the bus stop at the end of the road (8kms) and BD used the Subaru. And this has worked quite well.....until today!

MD has rugby training Tues & Thurs, so he goes to leave this morning and has a flat tyre! Attempts to get the wheel off and the tyre iron isn't the right one!
Even if we could have changed it he didn't fancy driving down our gravel road on a temporary spare tyre!

We are having road works done, they are extending the tar seal by 1 KM and the road is a mess, his puncture is the 3rd one in as many weeks on 3 different cars!

So we were stuck, but we managed to go paint the kitchen in the rental house at the top! :rolleyes:

The last couple of cars we have bought needed new "Socket thingys"[] to remove wheel. A friend of ours bought a secondhand holden only to find it had the wrong "fingy" too:rolleyes:.
We thought it was just a jap import problem.[}]

You sure your not just talking about keylock nuts?

Keylock nuts are wheel nuts with a unique pattern on the top, and you buy them in a pack along with the key to fit the patten. It stops thieves from being able to jack your car up and steel your expensive mags...

If you lose the key...then the only option is to bash them off...

Whatever they are they are never the right ones for the "nuts".[]

BD will sort it out tonight. He's a good man that BD!

They've got a new tyre for the one with a puncture, cars booked in for all new tyres on Friday.

I always prefer the X bar nut "thingy" as you put it thats 4 of the most common factory sizes, but my Serena has aftermarket mags and needs a custom nut socket which in turn has a base shaped to fit the a common wheel brace socket.

Kiwi303;169061 wrote: I always prefer the X bar nut "thingy" as you put it thats 4 of the most common factory sizes, but my Serena has aftermarket mags and needs a custom nut socket which in turn has a base shaped to fit the a common wheel brace socket.

Ya want to translate that into English? The only bit I understood was 'thingy' [:0]

I have the same as Kiwi said - its the only type I can get enough leverage on to get the nuts off. Hubby makes sure I have one in any car we own. But thats what AA and state insurance roadside assist are for isn't it?

TKP.. yes well I thought that toooo. until the day I got a tyre that was square on the bottom, waited an hour for service to have a guy turn up in his wife's car and no equipment, expected me[which I should and did] have the equipment, did the change, and left pronto, I think there was a footy match on. the reason I got him was that I cant get the spare out of the bottom of the car and he just threw on top of all my stuff in the back the punctured wheel, and didnt even bring the wheel frame back up.... I was a bit annoyed, but bit my tongue on this occasion.. it is a service that we do pay for.. 40x $65 adds up for 3 call outs in that time.. so do remain prepared.. also if you are outside of cell ph coverage its hard to call them

With AA after 10 years with them you get as many call outs as you need I been with then much longer than that HE HE first car was like Fred's

I have roadside assistance with the new car, BD & MD have AA cover.

Was an AA member in UK and could fault them!

Poor you beedee, I would have complained about that!

I've only ever used mine for keys locked in the car, that was years ago and they were very good. Now days I can't lock the car unless I have the keys in my hand so that won't happen.

Hubby is obsessed with tyres and keeps track of the mileage from purchase to what ever the manufacturers say is the 'use by' amount of KM then he gets them replaced. So I haven't had a flat tyre in years. Certainly not in this car. He also checks my car over every sunday evening, water, tyre pressure, oil, window washer water, so I'm very lucky that my motoring is pretty much trouble free. I can change a tyre or fix basics if I need to but would rather not.
I actually stopped and changed someone else's tyre recently! A young girl on the side of the road in the dark and on her own, she didn't have a clue, and I couldn't leave her there.

The other day I came out from work to find my front left tyre flat as a pancake. I was very suspicious, as I had only checked its pressure that morning, and wondered if it had a nail in it or something.

So in my good clothes, changed the tyre, got totally filthy (as my road is a dirt road for first 500m), put on the space saver that I HATE driving on, and as it was 4.58pm, gave up on looking for a tyre place and drove home very slowly.

Imagine my embarrassment the next day - two doors down from my office is a Beaurepaires[] = never noticed that - and they're open until 5.30pm[][] and it turned out the valve was faulty so when I took it to be "fixed", my local Beaurepaires man didn't charge me.

So blonde some days