Young numpties

crunchman

dindude said:

I’m 43 and have never changed a car wheel and never really intend to. I also don’t face my chair towards the window whilst enjoying a nice glass of wine. Not sure if you’re aware but I think you come off worse than the youngsters by your discription. 

The AA (or whichever one you are with) will take an hour to get there, 5 minutes to do the job, and another 10 to sign all the paperwork at the end of it.  If you do it yourself, you will be on your way inside quarter of an hour.  Of course that does assume you actually have a spare - which a lot of modern cars don't.  They should be compulsory.

jellyroll

crunchman said:

 Of course that does assume you actually have a spare - which a lot of modern cars don't.  They should be compulsory.

Why? On purely environmental grounds alone there must a good argument not to carry around a very heavy spare wheel in your car for several years, burning additional fuel, when statistically you'll need it once in a blue moon. Plus, if the art of changing a wheel is disappearing, there is even less reason to carry one around...

crunchman

jellyroll said:

crunchman said:

 Of course that does assume you actually have a spare - which a lot of modern cars don't.  They should be compulsory.

Why? On purely environmental grounds alone there must a good argument not to carry around a very heavy spare wheel in your car for several years, burning additional fuel, when statistically you'll need it once in a blue moon. Plus, if the art of changing a wheel is disappearing, there is even less reason to carry one around...

Well if we looking at it on purely environmental grounds, we shouldn't be using our cars at all most of the time.  More than half of trips made by car are under 5 miles.  For a healthy person that can easily be cycled.  Other car trips would be better made by public transport.

Funkfingers

jellyroll said:

crunchman said:

They should be compulsory.

Why? 

In the event of a puncture, the longer your vehicle spends immobilised at the side of a busy carriageway, the greater the probability of something colliding with it. 

A wheel change takes minutes. Once the vehicle is back on the road, its occupants are in less danger. Equally importantly, other road users are no longer put at any risk by a short term obstruction.

Handsome_Chris

@dbphoto , has the wheel been changed yet?

dbphoto

Haha, yes, it was over 2 hours from start to finish but they eventually managed to get the spare wheel on.

I still can't quite get my head around two young lads, one with an almost brand new Golf GTI, and his mate with an almost brand new Civic Type R, being so clueless when it came to one the most basic things you might need to do to your car.

Maybe the difference is when I was their age I was driving pretty old cars that needed fairly regular maintenance, so you either had to learn or pay up.  

Foster

jellyroll said:

crunchman said:

 Of course that does assume you actually have a spare - which a lot of modern cars don't.  They should be compulsory.

Why? On purely environmental grounds alone there must a good argument not to carry around a very heavy spare wheel in your car for several years, burning additional fuel, when statistically you'll need it once in a blue moon. Plus, if the art of changing a wheel is disappearing, there is even less reason to carry one around...

So the other option is to no longer provide a spare wheel (which in doing so saves the manufacturer's £100 per vehicle yet will happily charge you £150+ to include it was an extra) and save yourself a few quid a year (you'll need to do at least 20,000 miles a year to save this money), in turn you spend longer on the dual carriageway and will require (at worst if the wheel has damage that a goo kit won't fix). 

Having a flat and no spare wheel can mean more time spent on the motorway waiting for the AA to get a suitable vehicle to tow you away. 15 min vs several hours.

Let's be honest about this, the problem isn't that young people have no clue how to change a wheel - more that the parents of said youth are of the opinion that doing such manual labour is "someone else's job" and won't teach them any skills that could be useful in life.

ICBM

I won’t buy a car with no spare wheel - I will grudgingly accept a space saver one - unless or until it becomes almost impossible to buy any decent car with one.

The foam stuff not only makes it more expensive to have the tyre changed, it won’t fix a damaged rim, which given the state of the roads is becoming increasingly likely.

Phil_aka_Pip

I've changed wheels on umpteen different vehicles, but my Ford Fusion had me stumped. Where were the jacking points? It took a young lady less than half my age to point out that the plastic bits on the sill next to the wheel are pull-offable to reveal ... a jacking point. ylsned ...