Modern car nightmare

I was just out the front of my house when an old lady called across from the club next door. "Can anybody change a wheel?" she asked. "Of course", I replied, and went to get my trolley jack.

My dad was here too, so he also came to assist. I got to work on removing the popped the wheel while my dad searched for the spare. At first he couldn't find it, but then it turned out to be UNDER the car. Some strange contraption in the boot would apparently release the wheel. None of us could figure it out. We even referred to the handbook, followed all the instructions to the letter, but still the spare would not release. My dad and I felt really bad because we completely failed to get the spare wheel out, so I had no choice but to put the duff wheel back on and tell the lady to call the AA.

This was an old lady. Imagine her trying to change the wheel in the hard shoulder of the motorway at night in the pouring rain. What a nightmare. Yet another reason why I prefer older cars.

 

At least there was a spare wheel. On most modern cars all you get now is a solution to pump into the tyre which allows you to drive slowly to the nearest tyre centre. Great if you a out during opening hours.

 

I've got that tire crap, I'd rather get towed to a garage & have a chance of a tire repair than have that gunk messing up the inside of the wheel & potentially ruining what could be a repairable tire

 

You're obviously not a Scouser. They'd have had it released from underneath the car in 3 secs. Mind you! That'd be the last you saw of the wheel as well!

(With apologies to those fine upstanding forumites from Liverpool.)

 

This reminds me of a faux pas I made on a plane once on our way back from holiday. For the last 20 minutes or so of the flight, they showed a map on the telly screens with a little marker to show where we were. We were getting quite low, shaken off quite a lot of speed, and yet we hadn't heard the unmistakable clunks and clangs of the undercarriage being lowered. Wife commented on this point and ask if I knew why this was. "Look" I told her, "see where we are. We're right over Liverpool, if they lower the wheels now someone'll ave em before we even hit the tarmac". A few people chuckled. Except for the couple sat across the aisle from me who sat there staring for a second, stony faced. Then they decided they'd stared me out long enough and continued chatting amongst themselves, in their broad scouser accents