Wednesday, July 25, 2007

A Flat On The Myvi


Gee...this happened to be the second time I suffer a flat tire early in the morning.  Thought I noticed a tendency for the car to veer slightly to the left while on the road home last night, but I forgot about it when I arrived.  That's normal.  Lucky thing, I noticed it before I backed it out of the porch this morning.

So, what did I do?  I switched on the lights in the car porch and got out my jack.  Then I realized I had to install the spare into the rear wheel first before I transfer the rear tire to the front.  The flat was on the front left.  The spare for the Myvi is made smaller to fit into the bottom of the boot.  That kitchy-pie thing is only suitable for the rear wheel because of its smaller width and higher inflation pressure.  Fixing it on the front wheel would make driving at normal speeds dangerous.  That's what the Myvi manual says.  And that means a double job, and also double the time to fix it.  And normal speed means at least 110kph on the highway.  I wasn't about to take that risk.  Besides, two other lives are involved.

The last time I had a flat tire on the Iswara, I changed it in five minutes.  That was my personal record.  But this one looked like it might take a little too long.  And it's almost our 'departure' time of 7.00am.  Meanwhile, my carpool gang had just arrived, so in order not to be late for work, I went for the 2nd option.  Get a replacement driver.  Postpone solving the problem till after work.

If there's another good thing about our carpooling, this is it.  This is on top of the RM300 each of us has saved every month since 1995 (we had 4 partners then).  Less a few cars on the road, less 13 liters of fossil fuel being burnt daily and 2 guys relaxing with the non-stop music while the driver for the day tackles the crazy traffic (especially Monday mornings & Friday evenings).

Try carpooling, folks.

My word, I sound like the gomen network TV.  LOL.



5 comments:

  1. I got my tire flatted too few months ago.Hmm..luckily I notice something was wrong when I start driving.I stopped the car and check on the wheel.It was rear left hand side tyre which went flatted.Thats the first time I change spare tyre for MyVi.Looking at the tyre...it just...too cute...so small~I even more worry to put it on because...can the spare really handle it well?

    Well...I drove to tyre shop and repair it...RM5 gao dim~~hopefully no next time...it take me at lease 15 mins to change the tyre.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Car pooling is not suitable for me... I would required to travel on ad hoc basis...
    Thought of it and even taking public transport, for the sake of Mother Earth and my sanity...
    But... As I said... very hard...

    My personal record, 20 minutes, my first time lah!
    And I can't figure out, how to open the Wira original rim cover... Saying, "Opening a durian is much easier than this!"...

    ReplyDelete
  3. ya-lor...at least you can see the lines formed by the pricks...heheheh

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just don't understand why the manufacturer uses smaller toy looking tyre as spare. We are supposed to improve as we go into more advance technology. Isn't it ? I suppose they are advancing into economic and decline in customer care to reap a better harvest.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I understand this is not just to keep costs down, it also lessens the overall weight of the car. I mean, as the country progresses, we're not supposed to have nails on the roads all the time (dream on, buster). The spare is so seldom used anyway, so it's best to give it less space and weight. I understand this idea was already in use in the Honda Civic in 1992. So this nothing new.

    ReplyDelete