![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOmaha and I learned that you can do everything right, especially when you do everything by the book, it can still lead to disaster.
We had headed out to go camping, and were in a campsite just a little south of the town of Darrington, WA. Darrington is a tiny little place, half logging town, half tourist attraction, a place where a number of significant long-distance mountain biking paths come together. By The Book: The Subaru Outback is old, 11 years and 105,000 miles; the tires are 60,000 milers with 55,000 miles on them, due to be replaced before the rainy season begins. But the oil is checked, the pressures are checked, the car is in pretty good shape for an 11-year-old manual with the original clutch.
Omaha and I had spent a beautiful day at Baker Lake, walking four miles into the woods to reach an obscure little place called Anderson Creek and access to the lake itself. We spent the day swimming and having a great time. On the way back, we were just outside of the town of Concrete when there was a bang, followed by the flup-flup-flup sounds of a flat tire. We pulled off.
Front tire, passenger side, totally flat. The back of the car is filled with the camping stuff we keep aside, the food and water and stuff we don’t want the bugs to get into. Omaha makes room for the damaged tire while I take it off the axle and replace it with the Subaru-supplied “temporary tire.”
Replacing the tire was routine. Not in the sense that I’ve done it often– I think the last time I had a flat was from a nail six years ago, and I had that one fixed the day after it happened. But the instructions were clear, the jack-and-frame mating easy to match up, and the tire itself isn’t too heavy. The nuts came off with a just a couple strikes on the wrench.
A quarter mile down the road, the car starts to make a frightening loud thumping sound. We stop and Omaha watches the tire as I move forward, but we can’t identify what’s happening. We decide to tough it out, make for a gas station and see if maybe the temporary tire is underinflated.
It was not underinflated.
We took a deep breath and try to make it to Darrington. It’s 25 miles, and as we drive the thumping gets louder, we start to smell burning, and the car is shuddering like it’s possessed. It wants to drive off to the right and leave the road, it’s damned hard to steer, the thumping is loud, it’s become our whole world and the smell of burning is getting worse and worse. The car has a strain gauge to tell you if you’re driving efficiently, and on a flat road it should be at zero, but it’s an -6, meaning something is hurting the engine badly. It’s late now, after 6pm, everything in this town, everything in every town in a 40 miles radius is closed.
But passing through Darringtown, I see a light on: “DC Garage. Subaru Specialsts.” There’s one man, mid-20s or so, working on a car in the lot. I pull in.
His name is Don and he spends a lot of time crawling around the underside of the car. There’s smoke streaming out of from the rear tire wells. “Your differential is leaking from both rear axles. It’s a manual, so it’s not the problem you get with automatics when the spare’s on. Engine well looks fine, but yeah, your differential fluid is super hot.” Discussing it together, we eliminate a variety of stupidities, Omaha and I did everything by the book. “Well, let’s put the tire back on and see if it goes away.”
While he goes to patch the tire, I start freaking out. There’s no rental out here, there’s no transport out here that I know of, how the hell are we going to get all that damn camping gear out of here and back home? We’re in a place where my usual response to a rare crisis like this, throw money at it, won’t work, or at least I don’t know how to make it work. We’ve always been frugal and keep our rainy day fund just for moments like this. Omaha calms me down, assures me there’s a way out of here.
Don comes back with the tire and a hydraulic lift. “They call it a temporary patch, but either it’ll fail immediately or it’ll last forever.” He puts it on, and there’s no hissing. It didn’t fail immediately. We take it for a test drive; it makes that thump three more times and then it’s just smooth and fine and perfect. I take it back.
Don nods. “That’s one of the things with Subarus. They don’t tolerate tires of different sizes. If your tires are old and your temporary is new, the ratio doesn’t work. Your differential was slipping over, and probably trying to tear itself apart.”
I asked him how much, and he said, “We don’t charge for tire patches.” I objected; it was after hours and deserved something for his labor. “Well, twenty bucks’ll buy me a pizza and beer.” I give it to him gladly. He saved our vacation.
But I’ve always driven on robust, if noisier, tires. I’ve always fixed flats within a day of having one.
We did everything right.
Doing everything right made our car want to tear itself apart.
Only sheer luck kept, and one kind and honest mechanic, kept that from happening.
We had headed out to go camping, and were in a campsite just a little south of the town of Darrington, WA. Darrington is a tiny little place, half logging town, half tourist attraction, a place where a number of significant long-distance mountain biking paths come together. By The Book: The Subaru Outback is old, 11 years and 105,000 miles; the tires are 60,000 milers with 55,000 miles on them, due to be replaced before the rainy season begins. But the oil is checked, the pressures are checked, the car is in pretty good shape for an 11-year-old manual with the original clutch.
Omaha and I had spent a beautiful day at Baker Lake, walking four miles into the woods to reach an obscure little place called Anderson Creek and access to the lake itself. We spent the day swimming and having a great time. On the way back, we were just outside of the town of Concrete when there was a bang, followed by the flup-flup-flup sounds of a flat tire. We pulled off.
Front tire, passenger side, totally flat. The back of the car is filled with the camping stuff we keep aside, the food and water and stuff we don’t want the bugs to get into. Omaha makes room for the damaged tire while I take it off the axle and replace it with the Subaru-supplied “temporary tire.”
Replacing the tire was routine. Not in the sense that I’ve done it often– I think the last time I had a flat was from a nail six years ago, and I had that one fixed the day after it happened. But the instructions were clear, the jack-and-frame mating easy to match up, and the tire itself isn’t too heavy. The nuts came off with a just a couple strikes on the wrench.
A quarter mile down the road, the car starts to make a frightening loud thumping sound. We stop and Omaha watches the tire as I move forward, but we can’t identify what’s happening. We decide to tough it out, make for a gas station and see if maybe the temporary tire is underinflated.
It was not underinflated.
We took a deep breath and try to make it to Darrington. It’s 25 miles, and as we drive the thumping gets louder, we start to smell burning, and the car is shuddering like it’s possessed. It wants to drive off to the right and leave the road, it’s damned hard to steer, the thumping is loud, it’s become our whole world and the smell of burning is getting worse and worse. The car has a strain gauge to tell you if you’re driving efficiently, and on a flat road it should be at zero, but it’s an -6, meaning something is hurting the engine badly. It’s late now, after 6pm, everything in this town, everything in every town in a 40 miles radius is closed.
But passing through Darringtown, I see a light on: “DC Garage. Subaru Specialsts.” There’s one man, mid-20s or so, working on a car in the lot. I pull in.
His name is Don and he spends a lot of time crawling around the underside of the car. There’s smoke streaming out of from the rear tire wells. “Your differential is leaking from both rear axles. It’s a manual, so it’s not the problem you get with automatics when the spare’s on. Engine well looks fine, but yeah, your differential fluid is super hot.” Discussing it together, we eliminate a variety of stupidities, Omaha and I did everything by the book. “Well, let’s put the tire back on and see if it goes away.”
While he goes to patch the tire, I start freaking out. There’s no rental out here, there’s no transport out here that I know of, how the hell are we going to get all that damn camping gear out of here and back home? We’re in a place where my usual response to a rare crisis like this, throw money at it, won’t work, or at least I don’t know how to make it work. We’ve always been frugal and keep our rainy day fund just for moments like this. Omaha calms me down, assures me there’s a way out of here.
Don comes back with the tire and a hydraulic lift. “They call it a temporary patch, but either it’ll fail immediately or it’ll last forever.” He puts it on, and there’s no hissing. It didn’t fail immediately. We take it for a test drive; it makes that thump three more times and then it’s just smooth and fine and perfect. I take it back.
Don nods. “That’s one of the things with Subarus. They don’t tolerate tires of different sizes. If your tires are old and your temporary is new, the ratio doesn’t work. Your differential was slipping over, and probably trying to tear itself apart.”
I asked him how much, and he said, “We don’t charge for tire patches.” I objected; it was after hours and deserved something for his labor. “Well, twenty bucks’ll buy me a pizza and beer.” I give it to him gladly. He saved our vacation.
But I’ve always driven on robust, if noisier, tires. I’ve always fixed flats within a day of having one.
We did everything right.
Doing everything right made our car want to tear itself apart.
Only sheer luck kept, and one kind and honest mechanic, kept that from happening.
