Leave for Sydney late morning (ex Newcastle) at around 11am. Going to Hurstville to look at a car (TX5 Ghia for my wife, since she resigned from her job with a company car & fuel - another story altogether) so arrive around 1.30am. Get something to eat, waiting for 2pm. Trying to get to Railway Street turns out to be somewhat of a trick due to no right turns, one way streets etc. Looking for signs to get back on track, go through an intersection and BANG - manage to hit one of those F*#king stupid little round things on the road. Did not see it at all as the road kind of veered to the right a little. What are they there for anyway? It has been hit that many times that it was all black and very hard to spot even if you know it is there! Drive around the corner, turn around to go back and decide to check the tyres. Of course, the front right is flat (but only on the bottom
) Excellent, public holiday, Sydney mid afternoon, damaged tyre, space saver, 80km/h speed limit, have to get back to Newcastle. Who invented those things anyway? TAKE UP A COUPLE MORE INCHES AND GIVE ME A FULL SIZED TYRE!!!
It gets better...
Call the NRMA to find out if there are any tyre places around (looking for 205/40/17's could be hard anyhow - in Civic, not FTO). Give me the number for Milperra Tyres who are going to be open until 3 o'clock. Wife calls. The...ummmm...person who answers says that they will be shutting in 10 minutes (2 o'clock). My wife explains the situation (I am fitting the WASTE OF SPACE saver at the time) and he says "I'll give you 10 minutes". 5 minutes later we are ready to go and I call him to talk to him again. He tells me that, and I quote, "You should have left 5 minutes ago, mate". What was I meant to do - drive there on a flat tyre (or words to that effect). He then tells me to "Come back tomorrow". Are you listening? We are going to Newcastle this afternoon. End result - I leave him in no uncertain terms what I think of his customer service skills. We both hang up. I still have no new tyre.
From here, things improve somewhat...
A very helpful man at a Caltex servo manages to track down an auto wreckers who are open and sell me a rim and tyre (in very good condition too), and fits it for me, for $65. He had actually locked up and left but came back in to help me out! Check out car - not quite right (suspension nearly shot, had been lowered, and gear selector non existant. Changing gears was like holding a chopstick in a bucket of paint).
It just goes to show that the world is made up of all sorts of people.
Sorry for the long post - anyone else had experiences with those waste of space little round things in the boot?
