It was Wednesday night and I was on my way to a Stake meeting in East Wenatchee. I had to drop by one of Logan's friends house to pick him up, give him his scout shirt and take him to the church in Wenatchee for YM.After dropping Logan off, I decided to head north (instead of south) and take the Obadashin Bridge to East Wenatchee. As I was driving over, I heard a funny noise (a light, thump, thump, thump) and thought it was my engine as I could feel the car kind of jerking lightly with each thump. I opened my door slightly (while driving) and could hear the noise on the back tire on my side. I didn't want to stop on the bridge, so when I got off the bridge I pulled into a gas station just as you turn onto the highway on the East Wenatchee side of the river.
After I pulled over and turned the car off, I opened the door and heard the air coming out of the tire, looked back in time to see the air rushing out of it and going extremely flat. I looked at the tire and could see the top of a what I thought was a bolt about a 1/4 inch in diameter.
In my white shirt, slacks and tie, I pulled out the donut spare. Took off the flat tire and put on the spare. Didn't get any grease or grime on my shirt either. I got in the car, called the Stake President to tell him I would be late as I headed for Costco to get the tire fixed.
At Costco they asked if I bought the tires there, and I thought I had, as we had just recently bought 2 sets of snow tires last year for the vehicles. They told me the tires on this car were not bought there and they didn't want to fix the flat as it would void the warranty on wherever I bought it from. I opened the glove box and found out that I had bought them at Les Schwab. Couldn't go there that night as they were closed, so I went to my Stake meeting and waited to pursue it then next morning.
I woke up, called Schwab and they said they opened at 7:30 am. Took Logan to school and then straight to Les Schwab. I was 2nd in line. They took the car in, came out less than 5 minutes later and showed me what was in the tire. I couldn't believe it. It looked like the shaft of a flat head screwdriver, or pry bar, that I thought was 6 or 7 inches long. He said this pretty much ruined the inside of the tire and couldn't be fixed, but since I had bought the tire there just last year, it was still under warranty and they had one to replace it in shop.
After posting the picture to my facebook, I measured the beast. It was actually 9" long. Holy Cow!! I couldn't believe it. I am grateful it could be taken care of quickly, efficiently and professionally. I am also very grateful (in these hard economic times) that I had a warranty on this set of tires so as not having to worry about paying for the repairs.
