As I was struggling to change a tire this morning the thought struck me that it would be almost impossible for an 18-year old girl to change a tire by herself in the dark which should be the standard that auto companies strive for when designing tire changing stuff.
When my now 20 year-old daughter headed off to college a couple of years ago, I made sure she knew how to change a tire and jumpstart a battery. I also made sure she understood that the world is cruel place and that bad things can happen to girls. I wanted her to be as independent as possible so she can mitigate such risks as much as possible.
Anyway, back to the tire. I am a farmer who is familiar with changing tires an so forth and it was a pain in the ass to change this tire.
I have a new (to me) Dodge Ram pickup and this was the first time I had to change a tire on it.
The first problem involved finding the jack and tire wrench. I looked in all the usual places and was unable to find it, so I looked in the book and then found it.
The second problem was getting the tire repair package free from its holding mechanism. This required loosening a bolt that held the mechanism in place. I could not get it free by bare hands so the first of my trips to our farm shop which is about 2 miles away from my house was to get a plier.
Even using the plier, I was barely able to free the bolt. There is simply no way that an 18-year old girl could have gotten it free by herself in the dark.
Then I tried the tire wrench on the lug nuts, and again, they were impossible to free bare-handed. Hence the second trip to the farm shop to get a length of pipe to put on the tire wrench to make turning the lug nuts easier. Obviously, an 18-year old girl changing the tire by herself in the dark probably would not have access to a length of pipe.
However, there is a work-around for this step, if she was able to step on the tire wrench and apply her weight to it, she might be able to get the lug nuts loose.
Then after the lug nuts were removed. I was not able to free the tire from the vehicle. This required a 3rd trip to the farm shop to get a sledge hammer to free the tire from the vehicle. A typical 18-year-old girl changing the tire by herself in the dark probably would not have access to a sledge hammer.
You might note that the above steps leave out any jack-related problems. I did not use the jack from the vehicle and used a farm jack instead. So besides all of the above, there are possible jack-related difficulties that might multiply the problems for a typical 18-year old girl changing the tire by herself in the dark.
You might also note that I also leave out any potential issues regarding removing the spare tire from underneath the pickup and putting it on as I skipped that step and left the vehicle on the jack while I took the tire to be repaired.
A couple of months ago, my daughter called me from college and she was so proud of herself. Her roommate had a flat tire and was going to call AAA but they decided to change the tire themselves and they did it. Needless to say, I was very proud of her as well. AAA is not always going to be available.
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