Getting a flat tire on Thursday night was not something I really wanted to experience, but if I am trying to spin it positively, it was good that it was on my last night of the week, so I didn't have to rush the next day to get it repaired. Ultimately, I was down for about 12-14 hours since I was in Discount Tire by 9:30am and out the door by 11:45am with new tires all around. I thought it was lucky for me that they actually had a whole set of the tires I wanted, there have been times I have wanted to replace my tires only to be told that they would need to be ordered and I would have to wait a couple days, so that was another minor convenience. The fact that it was payday was good too, Wife finally got her first real promotion check and although it was shitty to basically wait and wonder how much she would be bringing home from her big promotion all summer, I would say the wait was worth it, there was some confusion because she started at the end of the "contract year" and then the school district takes two weeks off, even though she had to work, they didn't pay her for twelve days, it was a mess, but we got through it. Another convenience was that it happened at my work parking lot after hours, so nobody was around to see my fat ass splayed out on the floor trying to put the jack in and the asphalt wasn't 100 degrees.
When I bought the Excursion, back in 2004, it came with Pirelli (Italian) tires and at the time I thought that was an exotic fancy brand, better than the American brands. Well, I stand corrected (I thought Michelin (French), Bridgestone (Japan), Continental (German), Goodyear (American), Firestone (American)) were all American but apparently other countries make tires too. Anyways, I liked the Pirelli tires but I thought they would be super expensive to replace, and they were, I guess at $250 or so back in the day, but they were also big heavy duty tires. Prior to that, I had only replaced tires on my Ford Ranger and those were around $100 a tire, back in the 90's. We weren't holding onto our other cars long enough to replace the tires, we did have a few other cars in between. I guess looking at it that way, the price of tires has remained about the same, Discount Tire is not really carrying Pirelli anymore and I am a creature of habit, so I am not going to drive all around town looking for a place that carries them. I settled on Michelin tires last time I replaced them (I really thought they were American until 5 minutes ago) before going on our last trip to Florida, and that has been a good 6-7 years now. I am happy to say that the tires were still $240 each, so with install and insurance, I was out the door right at $1300.
As far as blown out tires and having to go through the process of replacing them, it all worked out pretty good. I was in and out in a couple of hours, my Excursion has 4 new tires for hopefully another 5-6 years of dependable service and seeing the new tires on it inspired me to go out there and give it a good cleaning on the inside, so overall, I'd say the flat tire had perfect timing.
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