Читать книгу A Compound Life - Gary Sr. McGee - Страница 9

I got a call from a friend a couple of months ago, and we talked for a while, catching up on current events and, among other things, he told me he had just bought a used four-wheeler equipped with a snow plow to use around his home. In addition, he said it came with a small utility trailer. He told me he had no use for the trailer, and said “Hey, if you’re interested in the trailer, you can have it. But, I need you to come and get it today, and oh, by the way it has a flat tire.” I told him, “Yea, I could probably use a little trailer like that to tow behind my maintenance vehicle, (the golf cart), and do chores around The Compound.” I started to imagine all of the things I could haul around….shovels, rakes, tools…grandkids…wow, and I’ll bet they’d love it!

Later that day, I went over to his place to pick up my new yard equipment. There it was, sitting in the corner of his garage. It was a cute, little black Craftsman utility trailer with a removable tailgate, and it had a dump bed! Sweet, I thought to myself. It just had a flat tire. How hard can it be to fix a flat on this little thing? Besides, it was only FLAT on one side! “You’ve got an air compressor, don’t you?” I asked, “Let’s pump up that bad boy and I’ll take it home.”

Well, I towed the little trailer home. Actually, I just pulled it down the sidewalk and parked it in my driveway. I was pretty excited with it. I checked it over carefully and it seemed to be in pretty good shape. The tires appeared to be weathered and cracked a bit, but I checked the air pressure in both tires, squirted it off with the hose and cleaned it up a bit. Wow, I thought to myself, the flat tire seems to be holding air! Maybe the previous owner just didn’t put the air in right, or maybe it just needed some fresh new air!

I went out the next morning to check on the little trailer, and sure enough, one of the tires was flat again. It’s kind of hard to use a trailer with a flat tire, so I started looking around to find a replacement tire. It’s the size of a wheelbarrow tire, but has a wheel with a special hub to fit the trailer axle. I went to the local Home Depot store and asked if they sold tires for wheelbarrows, not the whole thing, just the tire itself. The guy said, “Nope. We only sell the replacement tire and wheel together.” “How much,” I asked. He said “they cost about $40 bucks or so.” Too much, I thought, especially if the wheel doesn’t fit the trailer axle. I asked the guy, “Do you know of anyone who might sell just the tire.” “Nope, sorry,” he said.

I got thinking about who might sell equipment stuff, you know maintenance things and other implements to be used around a yard , a ranch, or a farm, then I remembered about the IFA store. That’s Intermountain Farmers Association for you city slickers, and I was sure they would sell tires for this sort of thing. I called the local store and asked my questions, and once again was told, “No, we don’t sell wheelbarrow tires. Sorry.”

Frustrated, I started checking into other options. Since it was a Craftsman utility trailer, I checked with the local Sears store. They sell the same trailer, brand new, for about $129.00, but all I needed was a replacement tire, and the store didn’t sell parts. The salesman told me to check their website for parts. Tech savvy as I am, I muddled my way through their website and found the replacement tire that I needed. It too, was about $45 or $50 bucks, plus shipping; almost half the price of a new trailer. It came complete with the wheel, but they were out of stock at the time. Too much money, again, I thought. Remember, all I need is a stupid tire.

I get tool and equipment catalogs all the time, but I never buy anything. I pulled out one of the catalogs and started looking through it to see if they had the tires for what I needed. I was quite surprised. They sell just about anything you can imagine, AND they do sell just the tires I needed, and the price was very reasonable. Should I just buy one, and have a mismatched set of tires, or live a little, and get two. Two brand new matching tires for my little trailer! Wow, for $10 bucks apiece, how could I go wrong? I just can’t have mismatched tires on this cute little trailer, I told myself. That would be like wearing two different shoes on your feet at the same time. Just can’t do it! I checked the tire sizes to be sure, and called their 800 number and placed my order for two brand new tires and was told to expect delivery in about a week.

Anxiously awaiting, the delivery day finally came. After all; I have this cute, new little trailer, and it is completely useless with a flat tire. The UPS driver dropped off a small cardboard box at the front door. I picked up the box. It seemed, however, a bit small to have two wheelbarrow sized tires in it, but I took it to the garage to get the tire change underway so I could start using the new trailer. I opened the box, and these two black pancakes of rubber, folded in an odd shape were stuffed inside the box. What the! what the!, what the heck is going on with these tires?!, I thought to myself. These don’t look like wheelbarrow tires. Shouldn’t tires be sort of round and look like tires? Holy crap! I just spent $20 bucks plus shipping, for two rubber blobs! AND I had to wait for a week to get ‘em!

I tried to fashion the “tires” into sort of round shapes. I put them in the sunshine for a few hours to try to melt them back to “normal tire” shape, and then proceeded with the repair. I got the old tires off the rims easily enough, and was able to get these flat things onto the rims. They were still smashed so flat, it was almost impossible to get them to make contact with the rim to even begin to hold air. After quite a struggle with them, they did conform to the rim and I pumped them full of air. Success, I told myself. Too late for today, I’ll use the trailer tomorrow.

The next morning I went out to the garage to hook up the trailer to the golf cart, so I could get caught up on maintenance things and such. But No, I had TWO FLAT TIRES on the trailer. What! This can’t be. How can these things be flat? How hard can it be to fix some stupid little tires on a stupid little trailer?, I thought to myself. I pumped up the tires again. This time I could hear a feint “pssss” sound. These tires aren’t holding air, what’s the deal? I looked closely at the fine print on the side of the "new tires" and compared them to the “old tires”. The old tires were TUBELESS tires, the new ones were NOT. They needed to have tubes in them. The stupid catalog didn't say anything about needing tubes. They won‘t hold air without tubes! “Sh*t, now what?” I asked myself. Should I send these back or what?!?

I started calling around again to see if anyone sold “tubes” to fit a wheelbarrow tire. Again, my inquiries were met with “Nope, sorry, we don’t sell tubes.” I kept calling different places and finally ran across a local tire wholesaler that I found in the Yellow Pages, and asked my same old question. “Do you sell tubes for wheelbarrow tires?” “Just a minute, I’ll check,” was the reply. The gal came back and said, “Yes, we carry tubes for those tires. How many do you need?” “Just two” I said, “but let me ask, do you also carry wheelbarrow tires, just the tires, Tubeless tires to fit a wheelbarrow.” Again, “Let me check,” “Yes, we carry those tires too!” “How much,” I asked. “Who is this for”, she asked. “Just me,” I said, “It’s for my personal use. I’m just trying to fix a couple of trailer tires.” “Oh, I’m sorry”, she said, “We’re wholesale only. You have to have an account to buy from us”. “Oh, you’re kidding, I just want to buy two little tires from you”, I pleaded. “Sorry, I can’t help you, that’s our policy, we don’t sell to the public,” was her final comment.

Disappointed with the results of that call, I felt I was on the right track. I continued calling other tire wholesalers in the area, listed in the Yellow Pages, and finally reached another dealer that sold that size of tire. My first question to him was “Do you sell to the public?” “Sure”, the guy said. I told him what I needed and asked if they had them in stock. “Let me check, and I’ll be right back”, he said. I waited anxiously. “Yep, we got ’em in stock”. “How much are they?” I asked. “Let me look; ...uh, they're about $5 bucks each”, was the reply. “For TUBELESS", I questioned, “Yep”, he said. “Will you put two of those tires in will call, and I’ll pick ’em up”, I asked. “Sure, do you want us to mount them for you too? “No”, I said, “I’m getting pretty good at changing these damn things. I‘ll just pick them up.”

The Maintenance Vehicle and the Itsy Bitsy Trailer

I picked up my “new tubeless tires” later that day. I took them home, and put them on the new little trailer. Wow, what an ordeal! But now I have a cute little utility trailer, with two brand new matching tires, to do chores around The Compound. Success, at last!

So…..Ask yourself, how much does a good deal really cost? Honestly, as you know, hind sight is always 20/20. If I figured the amount of time and energy I put into fixing two tires for this little trailer, over the course of about two weeks, it would have been much cheaper and faster to just go and buy the new trailer at Sears!

But after all...... IT’S JUST A FLAT TIRE!…. I CAN FIX THAT….. NOTHIN’ TO IT!