Fair warning: this is a rambling account of something that happened over the past two days. Read at your own risk.
One day in June 2023, I heard a banging noise from the right rear while driving. I had only been driving for about ten months and had no idea what was going on. Instinct made me check the right rear tire: a screw was stuck in it. I turned around right away and went to get it repaired.
The shop a friend recommended seemed to have some equipment problem and said they could only do a quick one-shot plug, but they were honest enough to tell me it would not last. So I went to another shop. The guy there was decent, and the 20-yuan patch repair felt worth the money.
Then came Wednesday night. I got off work at 10 p.m., went to the public parking lot outside my workplace, and saw the dashboard warning that the right rear tire pressure was abnormal. I got out, and sure enough, the part near the ground was flat. My first thought was that it was too hot and the patch from last time had come off. I did not hesitate much. I drove slowly back to the garage at my apartment complex, worried that keeping the tire flat would crack the sidewall, so I hauled out the spare tire I had not touched in two years and changed it myself.
My mood while changing the spare was complicated. I had been too busy those days, leaving at 7 a.m. and finishing at 10 p.m., and the exhaustion had me close to breaking down. When I took the tire off, I found another screw in it. Since it had already been patched once, I felt like replacing it that night, but one Continental MC6 costs 1,000 yuan, so I decided to find time the next day to try repairing it first.
The next afternoon I drove to the Tuhu about 500 meters from home and told the guy I needed a tire repair. After hearing what had happened, he did not try to sell me a new tire. Instead, he gave me two repair options. One was a patch repair for 30 yuan, free if I put a Tuhu sticker on my rear window. The other was a mushroom plug: 80 yuan normally, 60 if I agreed to the sticker. The previous patch was still intact, which showed that patch repairs could be trusted, but this tire was already on its second repair, so I chose the mushroom plug.
At some point, a staff member came over to ask whether I wanted a Tuhu annual card. Maybe they had not finished their sales quota, because they offered me a deal on their own: the app price was 199 yuan, but through their channel it would be 99, and this repair would not cost extra. JD Auto Care had moved farther away, and I had already planned to do maintenance at Tuhu by the end of the year, so I agreed readily. I asked if they could wash the car. The guy looked a bit uncomfortable, and I said just the exterior would do. The garage was very dusty, and I had been waiting for a rainy day for a free wash, but with this heat it had not rained hard in a long time. Last time it poured, it stopped before I could get out there.
After the repair, the guy did the wheel balancing and stuck two lead weights on the rim. I remembered that the last patch repair had not included balancing. After putting the tire back on, he also inflated my spare and pointed me toward the car wash.
When everything was done, I drove to the other side of the parking lot and parked. I got out to check and found an identical screw in that parking space. Fortunately it was outside the parking line and had not gone into my tire again. By the way, during the last repair, after the tire was removed, Changan sent me a tire-pressure warning text. This time, neither the app nor any text message gave me a proactive notification the whole way through.
Only today, Friday, did I finally have a little free time to write this down. Because I have been so busy, I do not even have feelings about it anymore. This weekend will be busy, and then I will be busy for at least another week.
I have started envying people with a real nine-to-five life again.