The Time My Tyre Exploded

So basically it went bang and did this:

the end

 

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The longer story is that the right side of my van started to develop a bad vibration during the roadtrip I was doing w my mum. As time went on the vibration got worse and worse and the faster and faster I drove the worse and worse it got. So I kept on trying to drive faster and faster to get to the next town we needed to get to, Tapo, but suddenly, without warning, the left tyre completely discombobulated, violently sending the left side of the van up into the air, nearly flipping the thing on its side, and before you know it, it slammed right back into the road nearly knocking the dentures out my mouth!!! After saving it and pulling off, I saw the culprit..

 

 

Initially I thought the entire wheel and axle for that side had snapped off, or maybe we had hit a land mine, but no. this stupid tyre couldn't be asked

So I'm out here on the side of this highway, having to change this wheel w this shitty 253yo bottle jack, ON SAND!!! (idk if u know but sand compresses under weight so the more I jacked up the more the jack compressed down into the ground, undoing all my progress) and as the wheel had completely blown out, so I had to really jack the van up to get the spare on as we'd lost all this hight. Also btw, this bottle jack was utter crap. It did the job, it didnt start creaking and then blow up like that stupid fckin tyre did, but I was having to turn this stupid tiny little hook eye thingy with this weird crowbar thingy for the wheel w no room to turn it so it took forever!!! :(

Anyways, I got the new wheel on 🐐 and got the van to the next town. Later I did a bunch of research and found that it was bc of one of the bushings on the right upper control arm (a bushing for the stick that holds the wheel on) had perished and was allowing the wheel to wiggle wiggle about loads, causing it to wobble about tons and blow the tyre up .__.

So I took it to a garage in Tapo and the guy there said the same sorta thing as I did about why my tyre killed itself, but the soonest he could see us was in 4-5 days!!! (might as well be years at that point mate) because his garage had been set on fire and nearly burned down ._______.

honestly. I have to do everything around here!

So we carry on with the mission and I go to a repco to get the goods (I end up having to go to 2 repcos bc only 1 repco has 1 control arm for 1 side and the other repco only has 1 for the other side). I also grab new break disks and pads while I'm at it bc the disks r warped and wobbly as hell too and make the steering violently shake etc when breaking so I thought it'd nee a good idea to go fix that too while I'm at it.

So I'm now in this car park outside repco in the blazing sun thugging it out trying to do this break job but the bolts holding the brake disc on are seized! and I can't get them out with my caveman tools and I don't have a impact and I can't justify getting an impact bc an impact would be like $600 which getting a garage to do this job would cost less, so I'm out here with a breaker bar trying to get this stupid fucking thing off but it won't do it, and the breaker bar is bending and I'm gonna break the breaker bar and I'm getting more and more sad :(

so I give up on that endeavour 💀 🥀🥀 and we end up finding a garage in the next town that can help us.

8AM rolls around the next day, not so bright and very early we take it in and they do us right <3 (not on price tho they hella tourist charged us de fck outta that one)

Big up Garrys Garage tho, we took it in the morning, and they were able to sort it there and then (tbf I had all the parts for the job already, they just had to assemble it) and it was done by 2PM.

Turns out my expert diagnosis was spot on!! The wheel wobble and break judder went away completely!! 🎉 🥳

But we did have to get 3 new tyres on the van tho bc we were running on the spare, the drivers front was finished too bc of the shot control arms, and the back left was nearing completion aswell (btw we had already gotten 2 new (secondhand) tyres before we left for this roadtrip!!! but they were second-hand so they were probably dodgy to begin with).

 

The End :D