Mine sure sucked. And I’ll admit that 99% of it was my fault.
I may come from Car Culture, USA, but I don’t know dick about cars. I’m a good driver but I know little about maintenance or tools. When I bought this car, I noted that the little thing in the trunk that holds tools was empty. I told the dealer to give me a full set and when I picked the car up, every slot in that box was filled up. I saw there was a spare tire there and figured I’m okay.
So today, driving to work, going down Clearwater Bay Road, at the point where it’s a single lane going steeply downhill, there’s some piece of debris in the road. I can’t stop because there’s a line of cars behind me and there’s limited space to try to swerve, because it’s a narrow lane and there are plenty of cars coming in the opposite direction. So I hit it, relatively slowly, but I could both feel and hear it going under the tire. It’s not paper or cloth, as I was hoping, it’s wood or metal. You can probably guess what happened soon after.
Within 5 minutes, as I’m on the approach to the Tseung Kwan O tunnel, I can feel the car swerving to the right. I cut the stereo, open the window and hear the sounds of a tire going flat. I pull over in that little center island just before the tunnel entrance. I pop the hood of the car, pull out the spare tire, pull out the little bolt thing that will undo the locked bolts, and then I go to pull out the jack.
No jack.
What I thought was the jack turns out to be some fancy little thing with hazard reflectors that one can unfold and put on the street behind your car. Oh joy #1.
Did I mention it was raining? Oh joy #2.
So I call my mechanic, tell him my problem and where I am, and he says he can’t send anyone because maybe the tunnel guards won’t let them stop there. Rather than argue with him, I simply hand my phone to the tunnel guard who is already standing there next to me, who tells him, yeah, duh, of course, send someone.
About 30 minutes later, the guy drives up, has a jack, jacks up my car, takes off the tire, grabs the spare. The spare is flat. Oh joy #3.
He talks with the tunnel guard for a bit and then tosses the spare in his car, drives off to get it inflated. Comes back about 15 minutes later, puts the spare on the car, and then notes that the spare is leaking. Oh joy #4.
Clearly I’m not going to be able to get back to Sai Kung. They suggest that I go to Kwun Tong. The guy on the phone says I should go to Shing Yip Street. The guy in the car says Hing Yip Street. Well, they’re only a block apart, not a big deal.
Of course, me having stared at the map for 5 seconds and thinking I’ve got it committed to memory, going someplace I’ve never been before, I make a right turn about a block before I should have made a left turn. This being Hong Kong, it means I have to drive about a mile before there’s any chance of getting back to the street I want. And this being Kwun Tong, the streets are jammed with trucks and traffic is at a standstill. Oh joy #5.
Finally I get where I’ve been told I need to go. My spare is totally flat at this point. People are walking into the street and pointing at my tire. Yes, yes, yes, I know. I drive down Shing Yip street and there’s not a tire or repair shop in sight. Oh joy #6.
I round the corner and get to Hing Yip Street. There are three repair shops on the street, no tire shops. I stop at the first one. I see a display of chrome rims inside and feel optimistic. I ask the guy standing in front if they repair tires, he says no. I take a closer look inside – its a Porsche repair shop. There are about 20 Porsches parked inside, all years, all models, taunting me, calling out to me, saying, “we know you want one of us and can’t afford one and all of us are laughing at you in your broke-ass flat-tire car.” But then again, the one parked in front is purple, with a vanity license plate same name as the shop. Parked immediately in front of that one is a Porsche that’s bright green. Who does that to a car? (Answer: people with more money than taste.)
Anyway, I explain my predicament to the guy in the shop, they try inflating the tire for me, it goes flat immediately. They take a closer look and decide to replace the valve on the tire, they re-inflate it and it looks like it will hold. They charge me only HK$50 for this.
I ask the guy where I can find a tire shop. I pull out my map book and he’s pointing somewhere near Diamond Hill. So far? There’s nothing closer? What about Kowloon Bay, I ask, so many car repair shops over there? Oh yes, maybe.
So I make it to Kowloon Bay, swing around Megabox, and the second shop I pass is a tire shop.
Stepping back in time about 14 months, when I was shopping for a car, I knew I wanted a BMW 328 or 330 convertible and I knew my price range. And at the time, I could only find one used one that was both new enough to have a glass rear window instead of plastic and yet old enough to be something I could reasonably afford. But not only was this car white, it had been pimped out by the previous owner. Front, rear and side body kits. Plus these fancy chrome wheels and 19 inch tires. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it certainly was (and remains) eye-catching.
But of course, those 19 inch tires ain’t cheap. And I needed at least one new one – or is it two for balance? But I also knew the car was coming up on 7 years old and had no idea when those tires had last been replaced. The treads looked pretty worn to me and, surprise surprise, the guy agreed.
Oddly enough, the cheapest option would have been to get something that the guy just happened to have lying around the shop – genuine BMW rims, but only 18 inches, and boring looking compared to mine. He tells me I can get those 18 inch rims and 4 Michelins for $10,000. Or keep my existing rims and get four new 19 inch Michelins, $12,000. Oh joy #7.
Now at this point I’m not in a position to comparison shop. I can’t drive around for hours looking for other tire shops to see if I can get a better deal. I’m not gonna go over to 7-Eleven and buy some car magazines and start flipping through them and working the phones. I suppose I could have told him just to replace the one tire, he would have spent 15 minutes telling me why that’s a bad idea, I would have prevailed and then put in hours trying to replace and match the other 3. Life’s too freaking short. So I told him to do the 19 inch Michelins.
I walk over to Megabox and kill time by browsing in B&Q until they call to tell me the car is ready. Seems like I was missing a nut on one of the rear tires, so they’ve fixed that. And fixed up the spare tire as well. They’re not charging me extra for that. Okay.
But what really bugs me is that after paying five figures for new tires, they tell me that if I want to pay by Visa they are going to charge me 3% more, or I can get the quoted price if I pay by EPS. Oh joy #8.
By the time this is done, as you can figure, I have neither the energy nor the desire to go from Kowloon Bay to Lan Kwai Fong for Web Wednesday, and this was one that actually had speakers I was curious to hear. Just turned around, drove home, I’m ready for a nap.
