Woke up late today due to late night reading, Pinball and an inter-ex-school poetry vendetta I had reluctantly been dragged into. I shall not attempt to elaborate further. Decided to play hooky and bowl before entering the temple of financial income, fully aware that it would mean staying till late and missing Ilham EP altogether.
Along the way felt that tyre was abnormally noisy and car was pulling to the left. Initially thought it was the alignment and wanted to put off checking until I was parked, but decided to stop and take a look after a particularly rough patch. Knowing PJ, also known as 'Pothole Jaya'; I would effectively destroy my rim should I be driving around with a flat tyre.
Unfortunately, it was exactly as I feared; the tyre was flat AND damaged. I'm not sure about the rim though, will have to go to the shop and find out.
Fortunately, I knew how to deal with a flat tyre. Before you guys go like "Nak tunjuk macho la tu..", please realise that I have always driven old cars, except when this car was new la; and I plan to continue driving it for a long time still. Changing tyres is a survival skill.
Anyway, being a female in Malaysia, I knew that:
1) All you have to do is jack the car up and switch damaged tyre with the spare
2) There will always be a kind soul who will offer to help do the above
I was right. Barely 5 minutes after I started jacking, a guy stopped and offered to help. So he did the jacking while I got the spare from the boot. Thank God that my spare was present, in serviceable condition and in the right size (quite often, dishonest mechanics switch spare tyres with those of a wrong size, making emergency changes impossible). Soon, tyres were switched and tools stashed into the boot. I gave the guy a tenner for his help, drove to the nearby Esso to pump tyre up and proceeded to the office. Cool.
Now will have to figure out what I should do to minimise damage to my cashflow and allocated budget. Some things like replacing all tyres can wait, I suppose. I might have to fork out $$ for a new rim, preferably a used one if I can find it. Maybe take a look at the alignment to make sure things are OK. Anyone knows a good place to do alignment? My regular shop in TTDI is pretty expensive. Feedback please!
He he... am in the process of learning to be financially savvy and live below my means. Not easy, but will get there, insya-Allah. Any tips would be very welcome. :D
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