This Wasn’t The Hard Stuff

Hey there Chilly Willies,

The last couple of weeks would appear to the casual observer to be a disaster, but never fear! Things can’t possibly be as bad as they seem. No, really.

I suppose we should examine my sister’s fateful week first. The blown tire on her car was no big deal, just call triple-A and ask them to change it. Sure, the blowout was spectacular what with the bits of rubber and steel cord everywhere leaving the wheel looking like a petro-mechanical tulip, but no worries. The spare went on and that was that. Surely she’d get the blown tire replaced in no time.

Blowout number two happened before that though. I’ve heard over the past week that the spare is almost guaranteed to blow in only a few tens of miles. Underinflation is usually the culprit. Sometimes, as in her case, the spare is full size (and on a real Lexus alloy wheel. Now that’s classy. Donut spares need not apply.) leaving one to delay the repair of the wheel that has become the spare. The side walls were paper thin and simply had to blow. They had no other choice, did they?

Thankfully, I asked her to have the car towed to the house and there it sat for a few days. She still had to go to work though, so as long as my Jeep was sitting idle while I was driving the mighty Dakota why not toss her the keys? What could happen? I had just put new tires on the thing so she couldn’t impose her curse on those too. No “special instructions™” required either. Just gas it up, turn the key, and go.

Key. Oh, that.

I’ve been very, very gentle with the ignition switch ever since I’ve owned the thing. Something wasn’t right since day one and I’d found a special turn-push-lift-turn procedure to get it to work that I failed to share with her. Turns out that if you don’t follow that unspoken and unwritten method, you can actually break the thin little ears off of the ignition lock inside the switch. Yes, off. Fully off. Jeep turns on but won’t turn to Start. That’s a problem when you want to start the engine and it left her stuck—again.

I have a lot of tools. More than a lot of people. I like tools and have quite a selection. At the Lodge. In the mountains. 127 miles away from the broken Jeep so I couldn’t fix it and get her back on the road in my ride.

What to do? That was simple. I bought my sister a set of tires for Christmas. What would you do?

The old lock and the new lock and the ignition switch, erm, “module” took a trip up the hill with me yesterday and were repaired by midday. The tires are on her car with the best old tire as the spare. She didn’t lose her job despite the days she had to take off work. I didn’t overdraw my bank account too badly, and everyone seems to be okay.

The Dakota wouldn’t start this afternoon though…

Your pal,

bob