As usual on a Saturday morning I woke up at 6am to fetch my parents to the wet market. Many people don’t understand why so early and our family constantly get this curious question. The explanation is simple – you get the freshest vegetables, meat, fruits and many more at the earliest of the morning. Now back to the story. As usual I woke up, brush my teeth, wash my face and went straight to start my car (in my pyjamas of course lol). As I reverse out the car and waited for my parents to get in, mum knocked on my window while mumbling something. I wind down the passenger side window and I heard her saying something about “no more”. I thought she’s telling me that the reverse light or 3rd light no more light aka light bulb burnt out cause I couldn’t hear properly. Mum repeated and this time I heard it loud and clear. She was trying to tell me that my tyre is flat.

Okay, something about my parents on cars. Both of them have no clue and knowledge on car. When I first got this car with 17″ rims and running on a 205/40/R17 set of tyres, they always thought my tyres are flat or not enough air. There are also times I get conman knocking on my window at the market telling me I have flat tyres and he can help me with a small fee. Hah! They must have thought I know nuts about cars eh? 🙂 The real fact is the tyres that I’m using are the thin type. So they looked like they are flat 🙂

So today is the best time to share with you a few simple tips on how you can overcome this flat tyre issue…like a man 😀

This morning’s trip to the wet market are cancelled as I couldn’t drive with flat rear tyre. So I drove back in to the porch and was shocked to see that my super thin tyres are touching the ground! I took out my trusty handy inflator and started to fill in air, at 6.15am in the morning with loud and noisy inflator haha. Mine is not the type that fill in air and fix the hole because those type can only be use once or a few times. Mine is just the air filler.

After I filled in the air, I shut off the noisy inflator and I heard a loud hiss sound. That means there’s a leaking and it’s near my ear. I started to look for the problem area and found this.

Its a key alright. As I said in my personal Facebook page…this better be a key to a one billion dollar safe!

Calm The People Around You

I wasn’t even panic when I saw my flat tyre and especially after I saw a key head sticking out on my tyre. Last year I had a huge metal scrap puncturing one of my rear tyre as well so you can say that I already had the experience dealing with this. Comparing to that, I was even more panic back then instead of this. Sometimes panicking can be caused by the people around you. For today’s case…its my parents. They have never seen or experience this before so they are so panic and nagging non stop next to me while I was fixing my car calmly. Although they know well that I know lots about car and I know what I was doing however their perception is always “girls cannot fix this”. Not all parents are like this mind you. Only mine are conservative.

If you encounter such situation, tell the people around you nicely to calm down and let you think or do what you need to do to solve this. Eventually I had to shut my parents down because my brain was spinning fast to think what to do now, what to do next but all that are interrupted with panicking parents. Plus they need to calm down so that I don’t go into panic mode.

Remember…at situation like this, the emotional of people around you can influence you and your judgement. Stay calm 🙂

Invest In A Good Tyre Inflator

Funnily a few days ago I was telling my colleague that of all car launches I attended, the one and only best gift from a car event that I ever received is this handy tyre inflator. A girl friend of mine once told me to keep a tyre inflator in the boot just in case. Hearing that coming from a girl who know nuts on cars makes me wanted to get it. Fortunately I was gifted one :D. Last year 2 of my tyres are mysteriously leaking air out despite having it check for numerous of times. This inflator helped me throughout Chinese New Year.

A tyre inflator like mine helped to fill in all the needed air into the tyre so that you can drive to the nearest tyre shop. It is not meant to be used long term. This is a temporary solution.

Using this is as simple as ABC and there’s an instruction leaflet included. Simply connect the connector of the air compressor into the valve stem of the tyre and push down the plug (black color thingy on the connector) to secure it on place.

Next plug the power cord into cigarette lighter and start the car engine. Go back to the inflator and ON the device. I don’t know about other inflator in the market but mine is a loud and noisy one 😀

There is also another temporary tyre inflator + fixing the hole. But that can only be used once or more than that, depending on which version you get. So far I am happy with this one.

Know Your Tyre Pressure

You should know your tyre pressure and fill in air once in a while. If your car tyre is still stock standard, you can find the pressure indicator on the side panel of the car door. Remember to only fill in air according to your tyre size. If you have changed your rims or tyre size, do check with the tyre shop and stop by any petrol station to fill in air once a while. I do it every few weeks 🙂

Drive To The Nearest Tyre Shop For Further Fixing

After you have filled in air into your flat tyre, quickly but slowly drive to the nearest tyre shop to fix the problem i.e. take the nail out or in my case a key and mend the hole.

There are 2 type of mending. The normal one is just to stick in a strip of sticky rubber into the hole and if you have a bigger cut or hole, the tyre shop would need to take out the whole tyre out from your rim, deflate it and stick on a big patch of rubber on the inner rubber. Option 2 doesn’t work on all hole. It really depends.

Know Your Rights And Facts To Avoid Being Con

One thing I learnt being a lady driver is that workshop, regardless which type of workshop tend to try getting me to fix or change things that doesn’t require changing. This is because they think that girls are not knowledgable enough on cars. I don’t really blame them but that’s the truth. Not all girls know about cars. How many of you run to your bf, husband or father when you encounter problem with car? I don’t have that luxury of running to a man so I have to learnt and deal with the problem myself since I was 17 years old. However I do call my friends and foreman to identify certain car problem before proceeding to the next necessary step so that I don’t get myself con.

All these con experience is based on my own experience. I’ve been visiting workshops alone for more than 10 years and I have lost count on how many of them trying to con me. I laughed whenever they attempted to do so and I always counter strike them with what I know. Never fail to shut their mouth.

Remember to always check with friends or the trusty Google to get the first hand knowledge on certain issue and solution to avoid getting con by workshop. In fact the tyre shop staff that I visited earlier this morning tried to get me change to a new tyre. I’m glad I know what to do from last year’s experience :). That puncture from metal scrap was major but no tyre change needed at all.

Before I end this, here is the culprit that puncture my tyre. My boss said it looks like an Audi key based on the logo on it hahaha!!

There is so much to know about tyre alone that I wanted to talk about but it would means that I’m going to off topic so I better not do so :). Hope this simple tips on how to deal with flat tyre helps. In conclusion, get a portable tyre inflator :D. It is really useful.