PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

retmil46 · #52 12-08-2009, 11:11 PM

My previous job for 12 years was at a Freightliner truck manufacturing plant building Class 8 semi's. I learned quickly to keep an air compressor, a can of fix-a-flat, and a tire plug kit in whatever vehicle I was driving to and from work. A lot of the workers, particularly those involved in installing cab interiors, would often forget and walk out to the parking lot at the end of shift with upholestry or sheet metal screws still in their pockets - and of course some of them, without any regard for their coworkers, would just throw these screws down on the pavement before getting into their own vehicles. One parking lot in particular was very bad - I had 4 flats in as many months, and learned the hard way to avoid that lot altogether.

My shift ended at 12:30 AM, and oft times I was still in that parking lot at close to 2 AM helping some other poor soul reinflate a tire or change out a spare because they'd had the misfortune to run over one of those screws

One thing that struck me as amazing was how many of them, considering that their job was building trucks - and which hopefully included installing the wheels onto the truck and making sure they were torqued on and properly inflated before rolling it off the line - had absolutely no clue as how to change a tire on their own vehicle - a couple couldn't even figure how to get the hubcab off - and in 95% of these cases the "Y' factor was not involved.

Only one time that I helped someone change a flat tire at that plant, that it didn't involve running over a screw. A young gent who was either remarkably in debt, remarkably cheap, or remarkably stupid had picked up a set of "used" tires a few days before. Calling these tires used would be like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch - both an obvious understatement. Looked more like he'd fished them out of the dumpster behind a garage or pulled them out of a junkyard. All of them bald as Yul Brenner, one even showing cord at the edges. Not surprisingly, one of them had blown out a 4 inch gash in the sidewall just as he pulled into the parking space earlier that day.

After showing him how to rig up and operate the jack (yes, he was one of the 95% I mentioned), he fished the temporary spare out of the trunk. Thankfully it was in like-new condition, as if it had never been used - and once he handed it to me it was also obvious it had never been inflated.

Once we had the spare inflated and installed, all said and done, the young man thanked me for my help. He then commented that it looked like he'd have to break down and buy some good tires after all, and that instead of trying to drive the 30 miles home on the remaining tires, he was going to park the vehicle at a service station just down the road from the plant, where he could obtain new tires in the morning, and call one of his relatives to come give him a ride home. I almost had to bite my tongue to keep from commenting that this was the first sign of intelligence he'd displayed the entire time.

I could well imagine the exchange between this young gent and said relative that ended up getting that 2 AM phone call, once said relative learned the full story behind this zero-dark-thirty rescue mission.