Life on mismatched tires, or "how not to get to Las Vegas"

As those of you who attended the Vegas event know, I had a run-in on the 15 south of Vegas that resulted in needing a new tire, but I didn't go into a ton of detail since that wasn't the point of being there. I was still on the California side of the border, doing a decent but not irresponsible clip in the fast lane, tracking a Hellcat that had been in front of me for half an hour. Unfortunately, Mr. Mopar decided to check his iPhone and drifted off into the soft shoulder next to the #1 lane (the northbound side of the highway in this spot is only 2 lanes wide, plus an exit ramp that was just opening ahead on the right, with sandy shoulders on both the left and right sides) and kicked up what I am pretty certain was an ATV driveshaft (or a driveshaft housing) or the axle for one side of a car hauler/dolly trailer. Whatever it was, I gauged it to be 2" diameter, thick walled enough to think "dang, that sucker is THICK", and 12-14" long. Don't be crass. I see Hellcat clip this thing, then he jerks the wheel, almost spins off to the right, and the thing I'll henceforth call "the pipe" dribbled up and down between the asphalt and the bottom of the Hellcat for what seemed an absurdly long time. At one point, the Hellcat's left rear wheel pops up off the ground and out shoots the pipe. Pretty much all I had time to do was a poor man's pitch-and-catch - I twitched the wheel as hard as I dared right and back again just as quickly. The pipe hit the outside lip of the driver front wheel traveling almost exactly in the same direction of travel at a greatly reduced speed. Through some combination of good fortune and 20+ years and counting of a good Christian wife praying nightly for her heathen husband's eternal salvation, the pipe punched through the tire tread, folded the shoulder down against the lip of the wheel hard enough to punch an EXIT hole through the sidewall, and then took a pretty decent ding out of the wheel. And then it skittered off harmlessly into the weeds into the sandy center median. Hellcat's eyes look like cartoons; he is frozen in fear (or, more likely, too busy defecating to react). I checked my blind spot, bailed off off at the upcoming exit that was now probably 50 yards ahead (but I've bled off half my speed by now without scaring the hell out of people behind me). At the top of this desolate desert offramp, in 60+ MPH, 100-degree F wind, I cursed John Ireland and changed onto my damnable compact spare. Part two of this tale begins the next morning at Discount Tire. Unfortunately, my Hankooks are not available anywhere in stock in Vegas, and no other Discount has anything else the right size except...a set of spongy ExtremeContact DWS 05's. I managed to not do anything stupid while driving on this mess; I need to get across the street to my man at my local Discount and see if he'll help me out. They have ALWAYS been amazing, so I'll take whatever I get. The side marker was knocked free, and both the plastic molded clip at the front and the spring clip were missing. The dangling side marker whacked some scratches into the fender, but nothing I can't polish out. Well, if I ever polished the car. Better than the orange donut. After punching through approx. 20-25mm of rubber, kevlar, and whatever else shoulder and tread compounds are made of, the pipe still had enough kinetic energy to take this chunk out of the rim. Note the volume of the displaced material...I was glad to not take this in the face.

So, really, I had a stellar excuse to order a drink when I finally abandoned the car - with a nasty, dirty, flat tire in the passenger seat - with the hapless valet. "Good luck. Oh, the turn signals don't work. And don't touch the hazard switch (someone got a little overzealous with the relay troubleshooting). Oh, and that wheel's going to fall over on you as soon as yo...oh. Never mind. Getting this photo, and the one in my sigpic, were worth the trip - getting to meet a bunch of Grade A Rennlisters was icing on the cake.

Man, what a mess and so glad nothing worse happened. Eddie

Ouch, but no one hurt, no lawyers involved, so it's just time and money to resolve. Worst case is a new rim and two new front tires depending on how new the other side is, and if you can still get a match.

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That is a cool pic. It almost looks fake.

No bueno. On the bright side, you survived an impromptu encounter with both Mr. Mopar and a vindictive ATV driveshaft. Scary stuff

Could have been so much worse!

This is the thanks I get for buying a Cherokee for Mrs. Schnell less than a month ago? WTF?

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Every time I replay it in my mind, I envision that hunk of metal clearing the hood and coming through the steering wheel into my chest, or neck, or the bridge of my nose. It's actually a little haunting, but a great excuse for some therapeutic libation. The car doesn't have a scratch, I don't have a scratch, and nobody else on the freeway freaked out and killed anyone. I don't even begrudge the $200 for a tire I desperately want to be rid of. Between work and marriage, I've felt fortunate. I am now starting to wonder if I might actually be somewhat lucky. Keep an eye on the papers. I'm pretty sure I just sealed my fate via some Bugs Bunny-esque safe falling from the sky, or a Wile. E. Coyote ACME invention will be streaking across the horizon heralded only by the forlorn "meep, meep" of doom. If you see a distant, dusty, cartoony mushroom cloud, that was me. *poof*

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Freeway debris is scary stuff. I was driving my 83 GTI back from Mexico once. FINALLY agreed to let my friend drive for a while because I exhausted. I went to sleep in the back and 5 minutes after woke up when the car came to a stop on the shoulder. Front windshield was a spider web - a 3 foot long metal bar had fallen from a truck, bounced a few times, and smashed into the glass, lengthwise. If it had spun another 30 degrees it would have come through and impaled my friend in the chest like that priest in The Omen. Glad you're ok!

For what it's worth it was nice meeting you and glad you made it!

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I warned you about buying a Jeep! I think they are possessed...

Damn man. Didn't you just get those wheels too after something unsavory happening to your old set?

I once dodged a flying sheet of plywood. While on my motorcycle. That got the adrenaline pumping. There seemed to be a lot of random debris on the freeways around downtown LV, so I think we're pretty fortunate that there weren't any more similar incidents. Oh, and I have a spare orange side marker if you'd like it

Any progress getting your turn signals back in order? Or are you still using the Brooklyn method? "Hey you're number one, and I'm turning left!"

Be glad it wasn't a Mustang

So, THREE of you lost a side marker? I smell another Porsche class action law suit.

No, only 2 of us, but I bitch enough for an extra person as well.

It just pisses me off to lose the awesome side marker the car came with. The guy who sold it to me knew it was worth preserving....

So are you changing your position on spare tires now? Should I dust off mine and put it back in the frunk? I just don't know what to do anymore...

I keep my spare tire in the passenger footwell* because racecars need proper balance *along with a Kindle signed by JI, himselfs

No, but I am changing my position on driving behind Dodge - I mean, Ram? - drivers.

Building on the "it could be worse" theme... I've been riding motorcycles in the Los Angeles area since 1988. Getting anywhere seems to involve time on a freeway, and the best days to go riding are over the weekend, which are also the best days to move. I can not count the times when I've come up on a car with the mattress and box spring tied to the roof of a car or SUV, usually with the mattress on the top of the stack. When the car gets on the freeway, the air passing over the car lifts the front of the mattress, and it starts straining the (usually two) cords that lash it to the car. This is usually not apparent to the passenger and driver, as the box spring looks just fine. I've seen them go ~15 feet in the air when the retaining cords break and they come tumbling down onto the freeway. I haven't hit one, and I hope never to do so, but it's an unfortunately common occurrence. In a similar vein are semis with split rims, where a metal band forms the bead surface on the outside rim of the tire. They're steel, about 24" in diameter and an inch and a half thick. You remove them to change a tire, and replace them before inflating the tire. You them place the deflated tire in a steel cage before setting a regulator to 95 PSI and inflating the tire. Occasionally, the split rim section becomes detached from the tire and launches outward with enough force to certainly maim, if not kill you. For this reason, I don't drive or ride along the rear axles of semis.

I love the "one driver and one passenger gripping the mattress" maneuver. Poor bastards don't know what a few PSI wind loading on a 3360 sq-in mattress (though only a fraction would be wind-loaded before it sets sail straight up into the air and then back down into the same lane.

As far as indicators/turn signals: I believe my turn signal relay is shot; I was going to swap it out with the hazard relay, but I also (accidentally) completely broke the hazard switch in the dash, and after eyeballing the guts, I broke off the one-way tabs and jammed it partially back into the remaining half of the switch still in the dash. It takes about 5 seconds to get the position perfect, but once the right connections are made, the indicator lights (front and rear) work just as expected. I think they're routing through the hazard relay, as they now work when the key is not in the ignition. When I flip the switch guts 180 degrees and reassemble the switch, the hazards work but the turn signals don't. However it happened, I think this means I will only need one relay (and the hazard switch replacement that arrives tomorrow, so it can go back to being a normal car instead of a Frunkenstein's bodgester. Oh, and the damn light socket and LED bulb dropped down into the fender/front bumper area, so I'll be employing my $15 Amazon borescope to go spelunking down the pumpkin hole. That sounds disgusting.

Spare tires are for sissies! The only people that get flats are those that are prepared for one. Everybody knows that. Plus, I already have a spare tire around my waist. I refuse to carry two!

Mine somehow jumped ship with the bulb socket. The Porsche gods frown on aftermarket side markers.

I used to love riding motorcycles. When I was on active duty in San Diego, I was riding my bike north on 805, in the center lane of the northbound lanes. Guy in a contractor's van ahead of me has an extension ladder come unstrapped from his roof. Not much I could do to avoid it with cars on either side of me. At the last instant, the ladder changed from rolling sideways to rolling lengthwise and I skirted past it. I kept my bike for another 4 years or so, but only put about 100 miles on it total after that incident. That's the problem with motorcycles - you can be doing everything right but there's just not enough safety margin for the many little things that can kill you.

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I road for years and one year my brain said "sell it!"...and I did. Some call them "Donor-cycles". They are fun, but...

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Best of luck! Electrical stuff terrifies me. I'll get over it.... Someday.

Had a six inch piece of pipe impale the windshield of my Subaru once, and a guy I knew was killed by a trailer hitch that was on the road and was kicked up by a car. Good friend of mine was killed by a trailer that came loose from a truck. Yeah, hazards in many aspects of life. That"s why I don't sweat the small stuff.

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I still have my original factory pumpkins... you're welcome to them if you wanna cross back over to the dark side.

Death before orange sidemarkers.

My wife was in the Cherokee when a matress came loose from truck ahead of her . She had no time to do anything but roll over it, hoping the lift kit would let her pass over it uneventfully. Mr Mattress had other ideas, jamming itself under the Jeep, attached like a Serta Remora. Wifey was a few miles from my office so she made a beeline here. I met her out back, took a peek under, saw flames, shrieked like a little girl seeing her first ### (I know you are pervs, so fill in that part as you see fit), grabbed a fire extinguisher and extinguished said flames now dancing happily near the gas tank. Flames gone, our warehouse guy and I tried but were unable to drag Mr Mattress out; it's love embrace was total and complete, now solidified by smoldering bits of goo, while bits of fabric were wound around the driveshaft as tightly as Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman costume. Yes, we a re bit jealous of said costume, but I digress. A flatbed took it to a shop where they scraped bits off the driveshaft and other undercarriage bits and replaced the muffler which now was coated with Mattress Stuff. $800 later with a new, rumbly Flowmaster exhaust in place we had the Cherokee back in action. There was a residual stink for a week or two and some asshat stole one of the exterior trim bits. Moral of the story - loose debris on the road sucks and those who transport Tijuana Style should be shot repeatedly and sterilized for good measure. I've also dodged boxes and such while transiting twisties in the mountains on the Harley. Riding is not for the faint of heart.

TL;DR: His wife ran over a mattress. So the tags that currently say "made of non-flammable materials" should actually say "made of INflammable materials?"

"...attached like a Serta Remora." Best thing I will read all day, I reckon'.

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Never did change mine out. Too busy racing Saabs to have time to focus on less important things.

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I'm with you. Keep these "soon to be raising in value" vehicles in original condition!!

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Saw that movie last weekend. Had no idea who Gal Gadot was. Looked her up on IMDB.com. 32 years old and mother of 2 kids. Pretty amazing. Some very beautiful women come from Israel. Look up Moran Atias from "Tyrant", was also a guest star babe on Rules of Engagement. (cue Kalash to come in and post mostly nekkid pics of Eastern European dumpling makers currently living in Snotsdale)

62 in a 45, rural VA secondary road on my Triumph. Beautiful fence work 16, 18 feet from the road, with a turkey vulture for a finial. He chugged of that fence with impeccable timing and course. I saw his underarm hairs while I (okay, the bike did it) swerved around the 1/3 deer carcass the vulture was there about. Glad I don't have a 911 story comparable-- getting that driver's seat out and cleaned would be expensive. Glad you're okay, Schnell!