Flat Tired

We traveled from North Carolina to Charlottesville, VA, with one tire flat. We can only surmise this because we now believe the tire went flat in Jacksonville, NC. We heard a noise, and attributed it to a storage door that opened unexpectedly. We now think the door was blown open when the tire popped. Either way, while inspecting the tires in Charlottesville, I discovered that an inner dually was flat. The outer tire had carried the weight, and hidden the damage. Live and learn.

Locating somebody to replace tires on our RV is a good example of how we find support people in general. As with many things on a motorhome, I can't change a tire. We don't even carry a spare, though there's some justification to do so. As a result, we rely on the network of help out in the world, and when we need it, we have to go find it.

We have a couple resources in the motorhome with us. One is the phone book contained in our mapping software, Street Atlas. We often use this to locate nearby resources. The main problem with it is that it's never up to date. Even though we have the 2007 version, it was published in early 2006, probably from resources available in 2005. On numerous occasions I have located a store in Street Atlas that I wanted to visit, only to find that it had closed or moved. We tried this, looking in "Truck Tires" with no luck. We might have had better luck if we had spelled Charlottesville correctly.

Since we were parked in a Sam's Club parking lot, with a tire department, we decided to check them out. They don't carry tires for our RV. But they had a guy who knew the tire shops in town, and especially the ones that might help us. We called them, and found that the do carry tires our size, but would have to order them, and it would take 6 days. We didn't mind overly spending 6 days in Charlottesville, but thought it might be more productive to check further.

The second resource in our RV is the manuals that came with the coach. I have referred to these on occasion to call Spartan, our chassis manufacturer, to locate service shops. One problem with the manuals is that they are 10 years old, and thus are even less reliable than the phone book. In this case, though, I was looking for an 800 number for Michelin, which I found, and it still worked. The number was set up for dealers to call to place orders, but I patiently found a way to ask for help. The fellow at Michelin was kind enough to locate the closest dealers who carry our tires, and even get them on the phone for us. The first one had 3 tires, and was 80- miles away. The second had 13 tires in our size, and was also 50 miles away. But discussion revealed that the secind one, Big L Tire Company in Harrisonburg, was in the process of opening a new truck tire service operation in Charlottesville. We were their first on-site customer.

John at Big L agreed to have our tires trucked down to Charlottesville, and they charged us the going rate (about $400 each installed) for them. They were operating out of a construction company lot near Monticello, a little hard t o find. To help, Terry, the tire guy, drove their company truck down to the entrance and waved us down as we approached. And he began removing our old tires while the new ones were coming down from Harrisonburg.

The whole deal took about 3 hours to change 5 tires (one was newer than the rest). We were impressed with the service and courtesy we received, though John said he would knock off the $0.13 from the total, and we got charged for it anyway.

Tires we the top priority remaining on our list of major things needing repair on the motorhome, and we had planned to replace them in Florida. Our delay caught up with us. I now have little concern for the condition of our tires, which allows me to roll down the road more easily.