In 2011, I blew out one of my tires on the highway on my way to teach school in the morning. Thank God for AAA, they came right away, put on my donut, and I went to school and promptly made an appointment to get a new tire. Not knowing much about cars, tires, or anything outside of my neighborhood in DC, I picked Sears- it seemed like a safe, retail-chain bet. A sad "adults know this but kids don't" thing I learned is that when you blow out one tire, you actually need to replace a pair of them, because you have to keep the wear on the treads even. What a buzzkill. Hundreds of dollars and two new tires later, I left Sears.
For the next two years, I drove around on my new tires. Now, I live in DC- the district of congestion- and after I stopped teaching, my commute shrank to 3-4 miles, mostly at speeds of 15mph or lower. I kid you not, sometimes I think I could have jogged to work faster than I drove for the last two years. Alternately, I took the metro. So needless to say, my car didn't see very much action, save a rare trip to a concert in the suburbs or to BWI airport.
But things changed once I started my new job this summer. Now, I spend hours each day in the car, driving all over the highways of Northern Virginia, the beltway around the city, and even up into Montgomery County. One huge pro to driving my car at highway speeds is that my gas mileage has really improved! But after a few weeks, I realized that my car was shimmying. Any time I hit 55mph or more, my steering wheel wiggled and if I looked over at my purse in the passenger seat, I could see it shaking.
I got scared. I remembered a fearful story from a friend about this exact symptom, followed by her tire LITERALLY falling off her car. Google told me it was probably just a tire-balance issue, but just in the same way that WebMD will convince you that you have Lupus every time, my internet search on "shaking steering wheel" didn't do much to calm my fear. I brought my car in to the dealer the next day.
My mechanic's name is also Tori, so we have a pretty good bond going on. She called me back to the desk just 10 minutes after I turned over the keys. I didn't even have time to connect to the waiting room Wifi. "Tori!' She called. "Did you by any chance lend your car to someone who may have blown out a tire and replaced it?"
Uh, what?
"No, why?" I responded, baffled.
"Because you actually have one tire that is a DIFFERENT SIZE from the other three tires on the car. Have you ever had any tires replaced from a blow out?"
And here's the embarrassing part of this story: Yes. In 2011.
Apparently, I have had a wrong-size tire on my car for more than two years and never noticed. I felt so stupid, but then I asked my mechanic why they hadn't noticed it either during the full circle inspections I've gotten in the last two years... her response? "If you're not looking for it, well, you're not looking for it!"
Luckily, I still had my receipt from Sears, and they replaced the tire for me without any hassle or cost, even two years later. But buyer beware: As I have started telling this story to friends, two other people have had the exact same thing happen to them! It's insane to me to think that someone whose job it is to put on tires would put on two different sized tires, but I guess they kind of are all round, black and made of rubber. The moral to the story is this:
1- If you have new tires being put on your car, check the sides and make sure they are all the same size!
2- SAVE YOUR RECEIPTS!!!!!!!!!
Cheers to a wobble-free future.
Peace and Love.
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