General News

[bellinghman]

Herself is off work today (and was yesterday, too). She thought she'd just cricked her back, but it wasn't going away, and she'd got herself a high temperature too. When she went to the doctor yesterday, it was diagnosed as a kidney infection, she was given antibiotics, and it should clear up fairly quickly now.

It did mean though that yesterday evening's trip to Cambridge to go see Hot Fuzz (see previous post) was a little bit trickier, since every single bump in the road caused her to squeak. I used one of the disabled spaces in the car park, because every foot she walked was painful.

This morning, I took the car round to the tyre place. The tyres are supposed to be at 32 psi, but the driver's side rear was able to drop to half that in a mere 4 days. A close look showed that a screw had gone straight through the tread and was protruding a good inch inside. Well, a quick job to extract the screw, drill its entry point out and patch. Or a simple job unless the workshop has broken its drill, so they had to try to borrow one from a neighbour, but it didn't fit their airline, so they carried my tyre round to drill it at their neighbour's ...

Ah well, it only took an extra hour, and £15 for a repair is a damned sight cheaper than replacing the tyre. (I asked them what they'd quote for a replacement if I'd have needed one, and it was nearly £250!)

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Ow! Hope Herself feels better soon. I've had a bad kidney infection before (manifest itself within the space of a working day) ...

I had no idea you could get 'permanent' puncture repairs on car tyres :-)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Herself was told 48 hours on antibiotics should cure it.

As for tyres, yep - and usually, that's what you want. Tyres should be replaced when worn down, but (unless you structurally damage one by driving on a flat - not that I've done that more than twice) you otherwise want to repair rather than chuck.

It depends on the damage. For a metal spike going all the way through, then the actual structural damage is minimal, and the hole tries to hold itself closed. The repair is to drill the hole out a bit to give it smooth walls, and then fill that with rubber melded to the main tyre body.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Howkay! And this is good to 70 mph? :-)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Over twice that, one hopes.

These are ZR tyres, rated for sustained 150 mph. I rather doubt the car is actually capable of ever reaching that speed, short of falling off Beachy Head, but I'd rather have plenty of leeway because a tyre exploding at speed is a rather nasty experience. At least, so I'm told. A friend once had a motorcycle front go at full motorway speed, which must have led to a certain amount of pants-wetting before he got it to a stop.

[k425.livejournal.com]

She thought she'd just cricked her back

Done that myself a couple of times. No indications of cystitis but the worst back pain ever. I know what to look out for now. I hope she feels well soon.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Tanks I'll pass on the good wishes.

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

Hope she feels better soon. Drink *lots* of water, and although it is not documented officially, cranberry juice helps some people.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

She had this through her late teenage years, but it wasn't properly diagnosed until the Karolinska Institute was her local hospital. But she's not suffered it for about 20 years.

She's fully aware of the 'lot's of liquid', yes, due to those Stockholm doctors all those years ago. Part of the problem is a partly divided kidney, which means that it doesn't drain *quite* as well as it should.

[knell.livejournal.com]

When I finally got round to checking the car's tyre pressures for the first time ever a while ago, I was embarrassed to find that they were hovering around 1.3-1.5 bar as opposed to the 2.2 they were supposed to be at. Funnily enough, the car seemed a lot more agile once they'd been inflated..

(Hey, Goddess! Get well!)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

It's not so bad when they're all deflating together. But when you've got 2.2 bar in three, and only 1 bar in the fourth, it really affects the handling.

(Though when it's a front that's deflated, that's worse than a rear.)