Long story short ish we were 4 hours into a 6 hour drive home Torquay to Spalding on the M42 west in Brum just out of free receovery road works and BANG! the rig handled supprising well with only a small judder and swerving and was easy to pull over albeit a bit dark at 10.30pm , the hole was big enough to fit my forearm into shredded to bits over 1/2 the circumfrence. luckily it was on the 3 2 1 in to the services so we limped off to call the AA.
New trailer and the spare we have is the wrong hub sizing but as all 4 tyres were full / new tread I wasnt too worried before. HA!
The AA call centre said we were screwed (literally) too big for a recovery and no other options if the patrol couldnt use a drill & plu repair
AS it happened there were 3 AA patrols in the car park so although we were told we'd have a 2 hour wait to response Ms BB went over anyway and had a word. Ive done this before and been told to 'Do one' and wait my turn so I wasnt hopeful.
So scanning maps for a place to dump her and drive home we fretted over the options as the services car park was £25 a day 100 miles + from home and work the next day. It wasnt looking good.
Within 10mins of her little chat the guy walked over appologised for taking so long, he'd already taken the tyre size and called his mate to collect a new tyre to re fit it.
He humbally appologised for the charge of £55 for the ttyre and £80 callout. REALLY? thats all?his mate (actually the AA local tyre service) arrived within 45 mins, had it jacked and fitted and paid for on card within 20 mins.
The AA guy stayed with us just to be sure it would get sorted OK, shock my hand and said have a safe trip. 2 1/4 hours and we were on our way home. I cant say how releaved we were it went SO well and SO cheaply.
a few things we learnt,
check your tyres, they are date stamped somewhere (2406) for me. that means manufactured 24 week 6th year. they are rated legal for 5 years as an 8 ply C branded commercial tyre. Mine are 10 yo apparently. (3 tyres and a spare on the shopping list).
Store your tyres off the ground, FLAT, covered in black bags over winter to stop the rot. having never done the last 2 Im not sure but worth a try.
& WHAT IF we were on the M42 or else where further from the AA local tyre centre it was a question (inmy mind it was wheel bearing failure) . The patrol consulted his instructions, they have a weight limit of 3.5 T, a width of 3.5 or so metres but no length restrictions. IF the tyre was not replacable within good time (im guessing a few hours) they would have contracted an HGV recovery to pick up the boat 8+ metres and recover home. OK a ball ache waiting but a return home non the less.
In all I cant sing their praises enough today, what was a nightmare we had in front of us and it turned out OK (ish) knackered at work as we spent the night on the boat in the A14 Thrapston services for 4 hours kip and drove staight to work with the boat, luckily we have yard and showers & Ms BB dropped off the dog at home and went to work I even got 1.5 hours extra kip in the car - GET IN !
Only found out when the new boat arrived and we swapped everything over. opppps