Pain in my tire

I spent my day today dealing with one of those annoying and senseless items that sometimes come up when least expected, and make you feel like your world has been turned upside down. As frustrating as they are, these annoying things deserve attention, and need to be taken care of before they get worse. I guess today was better then any other day for this sort of stuff, seeing it was cold and wet. I did not feel pressed for time to get to a farm, or to be anywhere in particular, so it must have been a blessing in disguise.

I love my Ford F-150 truck. Not only is it my truck, but it is my office, my personal space, my shelter from the elements. I spend more time in front of my steering wheel then I do in my house. My truck is my lifeline for what I do. It carries my gear and I safely every day to and from work, and it does so with great style I must say. People often ask me why I drive such a big truck. I start by telling them I spend between 60-70 hrs a week in that seat; I drive 40,000 miles a year and my truck, and it is my place of business. I want it to be nice and presentable, in case my most important client needed to come into my office for a meeting. My truck represents my professionalism and detail to the job I do every day. Plus, when you spend that much time in one place, you want and need to be comfortable.

Last month, I bought new tires for my truck, and those tires are what consumed a large chunk of my time today. I felt something was not right with my new tires as soon as I spent a day on the road with them. The truck was out of alignment, or the tires were balanced properly. Whatever it was, between 40 – 60 mph there was a vibration in the truck. Believe me there was, 40,000 miles behind the wheel every year makes you a bonafied NASCAR pit crewmen or driver in my mind. I have a calling for the road, so if all else fails in the feed business I am telling you all now: Emma and I are packing up Baby Kouri, Cooper and Cabot, selling the house and buying a Semi. We’ll hit the road for a life of long-haul trucking. Back to the tires, I called Rob at Oil n Go, where they know me real well as I am a preferred customer. I told him the problem, and he had me in first thing the next morning to rebalance the back tires. I took it home, and the next day, the vibration was better but still there. I called Rob again, and he had me back in to do the fronts this time. This improved the vibration even more, but it was still there. So, I decided it was not the tires, but that the truck needed an alignment. Called up Heritage Ford and got in for an alignment. This opened up a whole can of worms. First call of the day: the truck needs new ball joints in the front (expected for the mileage), and also one of the rims is warped. I wonder what could have caused the warped rim? I guess I could have hit a pothole, or maybe a Franklin County cow pie, but that would not caused this kind of damage. Road kill? Don’t think so. Second call of the day: the rim is not warped, but there was mud encrusted inside the rim throwing the alignment machine off. So it was a Franklin County cow pie! Emma had predicted this from the beginning, and had suggested that I wash my wheels out. I should listen to her more often.

After this back and fourth, Heritage decided to conduct a ‘wheel force test’ where they spin the wheels and determine how much surface area is contacting the road. This test revealed it all. It showed that 3 of the 4 tires are deflecting more then they should. What this means is that 3 of the 4 tires have more surface area touching the road than designed. To put it in laymen’s terms, the tires are not perfectly round. I found out that all tires are not perfectly round - imagine that! We can put man on the moon but we can not make the most common thing most humans depend on every day perfect. Go figure. Most tires are within a certain range of “roundness”, but 3 of 4 of mine are outside of that range. So where does that leave me? We solved the mystery, I got a front end alignment, two new ball joints and of course, another new set of tires. Plus, Bridgestone, the tire manufacture, is going to pay for it all! Could you imagine the hassle and the likelihood of getting not one bad tire, but four? Well today was my lucky day, I guess.

So I pose the question of the day: is the earth actually round??