It’s a good thing I’m a pacifist. Or mostly. If not, I might be crafting a horrible death for the Dodge engineers responsible for designing the spare-tire storage mechanism for my van.
I left work a week ago with about an hour to spare before the evening’s next activity. As I backed my van from the stall at my company’s parking garage, something felt amiss; it didn’t turn correctly. I drove about a hundred feet with the sinking realization that I had a flat tire. About 10°F, dark (dimly lit garage), an ice/dirt/salt mixture encrusted on the pavement, and wearing my dress clothes. Oh, and my spousal unit had moved the ever-present blanket out of the van into her car.
Now, I have no anxiety about changing a tire. My anxiety is purely related to the difficulty in removing the spare tire from its storage location! You see, I’ve had this happen before; in fact, just about six months ago. So I knew what was coming. The spare tire is stowed underneath the chassis, and is winched up against the bottom of the van by means of a cable mechanism with a metal ‘T’ at the bottom. The idea is simple: open trunk of van, pop off plastic cover, use jack handle to turn ratchet counter-clockwise to lower cable, and spare tire is lowered to ground. BUT IT DOESN’T WORK!
It’s pretty obvious that the underside of a vehicle is going to get dirty. Really dirty. Like mud-encrusted, oil-splattered, rusty, salt-caked, nasty-dirty. And that doesn’t work so well with metal parts. The upshot of this is that the $*&!{`%)# mechanism to lower the tire doesn’t. Oh, sure, the cable comes down nicely. But the tire remains wedged against the bottom of the van.
I shook it. Hammered on it. Raised and lowered the cable multiple times. Drove forward and backward a few feet before slamming brakes to shake the thing. Jumped up and down on rear bumper. Cursed a blue streak that must have terrified all the lucky bastards leaving work without flat tires. Jammed the jack handle in and wrenched the sumbitch ’til the blood roared in my ears. Grabbed the tire and jerked it like a Leopard seal on a penguin. Pounded the hell out of the mechanism with the jack handle. Lather, rinse, repeat.
After 45 minutes of unrelenting effort – all of this whilst precariously perching on two gloves to try and avoid completely ruining my clothes – I made one final all-out assault. I completely unspooled the cable until a long length was lying on the ground. I then grabbed the end and proceeded to yank the bejesus out of it, fore and aft, back and forth, left and right, up and down, until – voila! – the spare dropped to the ground. From then on, it only took 15 minutes (a few of which were wasted by undoing and then redoing lug nuts after not being sure whether or not wheel cover went over spare) to loosen lug nuts, jack ‘er up, remove flat – which had a nail hilted squarely in the center – put on spare, thread lug nuts, lower jack, tighten lug nuts, stow flat and tools, and hit the road. Only to get home just in time to change clothes and head out to my son’s hockey game.
So, a warning: if you are, are responsible for, know, or even used to live next to the engineer that designed the spare tire storage for the 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan, look out: I cannot be held responsible for my actions. I’m sure a court will see it my way.