VSC saves the day. And a complaint.

I'm back home after my hiking trip in B.C., Canada. I've never seen such spectacularly beautiful country anywhere. I spent a week at a hiking/fitness lodge in Ainsworth, and then 4 days at another hiking lodge near Revelstoke, accessible only by helicopter. My first-ever helicopter rides. In a week and a half I'm going back up again for more hiking.

So, on to the topic:

I was maybe 50 or 60 miles away from home when I had a tire blow out. Many years ago a tire blew out in my Jeep and it went off the road and rolled over. The Prius with a blow-out tracked so straight that I didn't even realize I had a flat. But it vibrated enough that it was obvious something was wrong and I pulled over.

So I put on the confounded doughnut spare tire and had to drive 45 mph on the highway all the way home. Then the real tire doesn't fit in where the spare goes, so the rear cargo floor sticks way up. Why the @#*^%*!@!@!$#^$# can't they make the spare tire area big enough for a real tire??????!!!?? I would gladly pay the extra cost to have a real spare. If it had happened sooner I could have had to drive hundreds of miles on that damned doughnut tire!

Anyway, VSC kept me on the road and upright and in my lane (though there were no other cars around on that road).

 

The depth of the area is not the problem: it's the front-to-back distance. Putting the real tire in there, the back of the tire is resting at the level of the cargo floor, pushing up the cargo floor itself at about a 45 degree angle.

What actually happened: A sharp triangle of plastic, about one inch on a side, punctured the tire between the treads, causing a slow leak. I had no indication that the air pressure had gone down. But as the tire deflated the sidewall was distorted, causing it to heat up and finally a large jagged hole about 2 inches long burst open in the sidewall.

The man at the tire store said this was a road hazzard, not a tire defect. The store where I bought the tires includes road hazzard coverage, but I'm not going to return to Fargo from Spokane just to make a claim. I've been too busy to ask my insurance agent if this is covered on my regular car insurance, but I think it is.

The tread on my tires is like new. I've maybe put 10,000 miles on them. The tire man said in another 10,000 miles you won't be able to tell which is the new tire and which are the old.

It was a fluke occurance. If the plastic had hit the tread instead of the space between it would not have penetrated. The tire man thinks the front tire threw the plastic piece up so it then hit the tire with the sharp edge upright, and it was exactly the right size to be wedged in between the treads and driven into the tire.

Yep, I keep going up to Ainsworth. But I may switch. The guides at Mountain Trek are absolutely the best. I've learned everything I know about hiking from them. But it's a long drive to any of the trailheads, leaving less time for actual hiking. Selkirk Mountain Experience near Revelstoke is right in the wilderness so the hiking begins at the door, and the hikes can be much longer. And I've got the names of other similar places to check out.