WHEEL WORLD NEWS
August 2018
7
Dean's Car Corner
Monthly Column
Welcome back to Dean‘s Car Corner. Hope you’ve had a good month. Last month was the first time that I wrote this column and this month I had planned to write about the importance of an oil change. Well things have changed. I’ll explain…
As my profession, I am a service advisor. This means that my customers should feel confident that when they deal with me I have their safety in mind. My job is to advise and educate my customers about anything and everything on their vehicle that pertains to its reliability to get them from point-A to point-B, and most importantly get them there and back safely.
This brings me to something that happened to me last week. On my commute home my dashboard alerted me that my left rear tire was low on air. At the next traffic light I opened up my door and looked back at the tire to see if it was visibly low. It looked fine even though I could hear the air leaking from it. I continued on to the next traffic light and I did the same thing, again the tire looked fine but I could still hear the air leaking out and now my dashboard was telling me that my left rear tire was flat and to keep the speed under 55 mph. Wait...what? My car is telling me that I have a flat tire but that I can still drive 55 mph or less? Have you ever heard of this?
As a car guy, I knew I wasn’t going to have a problem getting home. But if you’ve never heard of zero pressure tires also known as run flats, this is something that you should look into for your vehicle. Fortunately my Corvette automatically comes with run-flat tires because there’s no room for a spare tire. These tires are available for any vehicle as long as you’re willing to pay the extra price.
I think you know as well as I do that if you are a disabled individual, life is a little bit more expensive. I chose to write about this because in all honesty what was I going to do at 6:30 in the evening and 115° weather, with no shade, and a spinal cord injury that has left me with the inability to sweat and regulate my body temperature? These run-flat tires, in the worst case scenario, can save your life!
For more information on these kind of tires you can do a Google search, visit tirerack.com, or maybe go to your local discount tire and find out about them. If they do not have them available in the size that you need, you may need to purchase a set of wheels that would accommodate a run-flat tires for your vehicle. Either way if you have a few extra dollars to spend, in the long run (especially if you were put into the situation) you would save money.
Thank you for reading! See you next month!
Dean Joyce
Service Advisor a 3A Automotive & Diesel.
602-997-7978