Many people will drive a car with the temp gauge reading BBQ or the oil light on and never notice a thing UNTIL the damage becomes obvious.
I can’t even begin to remember over the years how many people have posted on this forum about a trashed engine due to no oil and they all swear the no oil pressure lamp was never illuminated.
Some of them drove off from a fast lube facility and never made it very far but claimed “the oil light was not on” even though the fast lube had completely forgotten to add oil.
Yesterday, I had to visit the Oral Surgeon’s office, and I finally snagged the last parking spot on the street. As I got out of my car, I noticed a LOT of 6 inch sheetrock screws lying on the pavement that I had just driven over in order to get into that space.
When I returned to the car, the tires looked okay and the TPMS warning light did not come on during my 30 minute drive home. I already checked the tires this morning with my gauge and none of them have lost any pressure, so I think I lucked out. But, it’s just aggravating to see that someone dropped a large quantity of screws on the pavement, and didn’t have the decency to clean them up. I may have lucked-out, but somebody is sure to wind up with a flat as a result of those screws.
Screws, both metal and wood, very common here too. I’ve found two Apple cell phones laying in the street. Both had been run over by several cars, but both seemed to still work. At least they seemed to be getting calls. I turned those in to a nearby lost and found. Lug nuts and lug bolts another common thing I find. The other weird thing I find pretty often are those long bolts, like 6-8 inches long, that hold the brake calipers to the hub ass’y. I found another one yesterday in fact. That’s sort of worrying … lol . .
Many years ago, I saw a hammer lying on the pavement. Luckily, it was a lightly-traveled road, so I was able to pull over and retrieve it. It has an honored place in my toolbox, and besides giving me a free tool, I may have saved another vehicle from damage.
talking about metal one can find on the road… the story goes 25+ years back…
it was a local road next to where I lived where a bent piece of pipe was embedded into the pavement “somehow”, and it was quite firmly in place, protruding just a half an inch or so above, and since it was next the curb, pretty much all locals knew to avoid it
next comes “the hero”… the guy had the really old car with non-retracting seat-belts and did not fasten it, so it was just hanging on the side, and unfortunately for him it had a loop hanging down from the side of the car
I did not see the actual “bingo!” moment, but as I was getting back home, that car was standing on the side of the road, with b-pillar crushed in as the seat-belt loop made a perfect catch of that pipe and all the kinetic energy went into crushing it down and to the back… the belt was apparently strong enough not to snap and the pipe was really strong
Not debris in the road, but hazards of running over a street sign @ midnight. No idea why they kept driving to the emergency room, can’t imagine the noise and pain. But news reported the victim was able to walk out of the hospital the next day
I had almost forgotten…
Many years ago, I was driving my fairly-new '86 Taurus on Route 22 in NJ, and I encountered a bunch of rebar rods lying in the road. Because of the amount of traffic, I couldn’t swerve to avoid them, and was only able to brake before I went over them. There was some noise as one or more of them hit the underside of the car, but everything seemed to be okay.
It was only when I neared my home that the trans produced a very heavy downshift, and I realized that I probably had a puncture in the trans pan. Three blocks later, I pulled into the driveway, parked the car, and there was an immediate small red puddle under the car. I checked the trans dipstick, and it showed nothing on the stick.
The next day, I had it towed to the Ford dealer, where the trans pan was replaced. Miraculously, the trans apparently sustained no damage from being run dry because I was able to drive for several more years, and never experienced any trans problems. Obviously, I was very lucky.
Years ago a friend of ours ran over steel bolts and bars that fell off a truck on I-95 south of Washington DC. One of them poked thru the floor pan 2 inches behind where his butt sat on the drivers seat. It was 5 feet long and would have impaled him. It had some sort of lip or flange that stopped it about 3 feet into the car. The other end caught the road and lifted the car off the road as he hit it. The floor of the car was holed and torn.
Years ago I bought a brand new BMW motorcycle and a few months after the purchase I hit one of a number of bricks that fell off of a flatbed trailer when the steel bands broke on a pallet. Happened about 75 MPH on I-35.
That launched me into the air and was a real heart in the throat moment until I got the bike stopped. Wheel rim shoved back 3 inches and the inner tube was ballooned out.
Second worst cycle wrestling match I was ever involved in; the first being a blown rear tire at 85 after running over a 12 inch long nail which instantly mangled the tube. That was one of those come to Jesus moments that left me gasping for air after wrestling that greasy pig for a 1/4 mile onto the shoulder.
If you purchased a new valve stem (or, depending on the nature of this car’s TPMS system, a combination valve stem/TPMS wheel sensor) along with the new tire, then I think that the shop is on the hook for the cost of replacing the tire. If you re-used the old equipment, then they are not going to pay for the replacement of that tire.
That was nice of them. In the old days it was just standard procedure to change the valves when new tires are put on. With TPMS though and the sensors attached to the valves in some cases, that just doesn’t happen now. The rubber valves deteriorate as well as stick out from the wheels so subject to damage.
