How to waste 4 hours & £150

Siliconslave · 19 Aug 2011 at 10:41

So I had a lovely day yesterday, Flying back from GamesCom at 7am with a little bit of a hangover was just the start of it.

Got back to the car and drove off with something making a weird noise. A 1cm wide chunk of metal was protruding from the side wall of my offside rear tyre. So time to replace a 500mile old tyre

The inflation kits not going to work on that so phoned for the RAC and took the wheel off to save some time.

Lugged the wheel down to the entrance of the car park so the RAC van didn't have to try and negotiate the ramps etc. only to get a call to say he was by next to my car

Anyhows got over to the local tyre place to get screwed out of £150 for a new tyre (£100 from camskill

) and found out it was a small key that was lodged in the wheel.

Driving home something felt wrong though, the car visibly twisted under acceleration and coming off power, not a pleasant sensation but as I was on the m23/m25 I couldn't really stop so nursed it to the A3 at 50 on cruise after phoning the Mazda garage who suggested it was probably just new tyre & wet slippery roads causing it.

When I did finally get somewhere safe to stop it turns out they'd put a 205/40/17 tyre on instead of 205/45/17 :mad:

It really messes up the handling I can tell you. So another hours jaunt to get it fixed and get some cash back for my troubles.

Apparently the tyre had been mislabelled and was the only wrongun in a batch of four, they hadn't checked the side wall when they installed it. :mad:

lordrobs · 19 Aug 2011 at 11:25

Damn, what a faff

I've never had this happen to me but it is something I've always been paranoid about (along with having the wrong brand fitted, a chunk taken out of my allow wheel or the dreaded clip on weights being used) so I always have a look before driving off.

Weird puncture in the first place though, I wonder what it was from or how it got there?!

EDIT- missed that it was a key, that adds a whole new world of WTF!

sanofi · 19 Aug 2011 at 11:25

How on earth did a key get stuck in there?

Andrew Moore · 19 Aug 2011 at 11:28

Someone has put that there, its too high up to have been driven over..

Siliconslave · 19 Aug 2011 at 11:53

Andrew Moore said:
Someone has put that there, its too high up to have been driven over..

I did think that - not sure when / how but I guess they could have done it while I was parked in Gatwick - was stuck all the way in through the side wall and snapped off so must have taken some strength to do

No cameras that would see there so not much I can do, wasn't even parked like an numpty or anything - tucked as far into the side as possible to leave space.

Ultra_Extreme · 19 Aug 2011 at 12:03

thats a bit of an ask to stick a key through a tyre wall and break it off by hand? Im a big enuff fella but no way i could do that! Very odd.

Skyboat · 19 Aug 2011 at 12:39

What a complete an utter bar steward whoever did that. Shame there's no cameras to catch the bugger.

Mr.Stu · 19 Aug 2011 at 12:54

Unlucky, I've had a small key in my tyre before too!

arknor · 19 Aug 2011 at 13:38

Ultra_Extreme said:
thats a bit of an ask to stick a key through a tyre wall and break it off by hand? Im a big enuff fella but no way i could do that! Very odd.

even with a hammer you would find it difficult

PhillyDee · 19 Aug 2011 at 13:39

Whole new meaning to someone keying your car!

Ultra_Extreme · 19 Aug 2011 at 13:45

arknor said:
even with a hammer you would find it difficult

Yeah i mean the tyre would give quite a bit, seems super strange

Irish_Tom · 19 Aug 2011 at 13:49

What a pain in the ass!

I too am struggling to comprehend how a key ended up in your tyre wall.