Such is the negative side of car ownership that it’s a real downer when things such as a tire puncture happens. You’re going about your day nicely on the commute and then suddenly there’s a huge popping noise; not a minute later the dashboard is furiously blinking at you to say the front left tire is gone. After some curse words you are forced to stop the car to assess the situation, after which you thank the heavens that your particular car has still got a functional spare tire - rather than the can of goo that’s en vogue these days - to replace the failure.
After that episode, you now have to make a call to the tire shop to get the puncture repaired and/or the tire replaced. Good news for the tire shop, bad news for you because you’ve now got to take time out of the workday to make the trip over, and because of COVID-19 protocols, getting an appointment is neither easy nor quick. There’s also the looming potentiality for even more hurt: the car you have is all-wheel drive, so laws of physics dictates that if you have to replace one tire, the one on the opposite end of the axle must also be replaced as well, lest the differential gets destroyed due to the circumference mismatch.
You had plans for a good day, and then out of the blue you’re now down the price of one brand new tire, and a half a day of precious time.
That’s just part of the game, isn’t it? It comes with the territory of owning a car: you have to spend time and money to maintain and upkeep it. Such complicated machines aren’t destined to run perfectly all the time, and of course there’s many external factors as well, such as hazardous nails on the roadways. It doesn’t help that us car enthusiasts are so obsessive about our vehicles, constantly worry about its condition and making sure its as perfect as possible. The stress goes through the roof should you have to street-park your car, scared of the one day you’ll return to some act of vandalism, or worse, a mangled mess of metal.
Well it’s a good thing that everything I’ve described above happened to my brother and his Audi A3, though I can surely sympathize with the anxiety and hassle of having to deal with the less glamours parts of owning a car. Tire problems especially: it’s really down to pure luck.
No boring colors.