Dad - the car is making a funny noise

J 1177

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Durham, UK
It seems the modern way sit on your phone whilst the workers sort it out for you. Slightly different, but our village has umpteen unadopted roads around a green and at the best of times these are wet. During the beast from the east one bloke came off one road with his Merc 4x4, I saw it so went to pull him out with the tractor. The bloke got out and helped me to attach a to strap to his motor. He was in his shirt sleves and must have been 70 plus. His son got out and stood there taking selfies, now the son wasn't a 14 year old spotty teenager, he was a mid 20s grown man taking fecking selfies whilst we chewed on.
I just shook my head....
 

Netherfield

Member
Location
West Yorkshire
Although nowadays truckers don't carry spare wheels, mostly for fear of them getting pinched I imagine, but it's also regarded as dead weight, local haulage firm when they got a new truck would take the spare wheel off when delivered and put back on on old wheel fitted with a tyre with just a few millimetres of tread on it.

I bought two ERF's second hand and neither came with a spare wheel, and although we equipped them with one, in 14 years never was one used at the side of the road.
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
Have one car fitted with run flat tyres and others without - would much prefer it if I got a puncture on the motorway. Last puncture I got on motorway I had a spare but sat on verge and waited for the AA to come - no way was I going to do anything on the hard shoulder with vehicles going past and no protection. Run flats can manage with quite impressive holes too - had an inch wide slash from a bit of lorry CV joint through one, but drove it home and then on to garage a few days later.
 

PostHarvest

Member
Location
Warwick
truckers don't carry spare wheels,
My uncle used to manage a large fleet of trucks for a brick factory. He removed all items that were not absolutely necessary so they could carry the maximum load of bricks and still keep within the max vehicle weight. Bearing in mind that the average truck rarely had a flat, by the time they needed a roadside tyre repair service the number of extra bricks they could deliver instead of a lugging about a spare wheel, spare wheel tray, jack and wheelbrace had paid for the service several times over.
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Think you will find compressor and gue is not the cheap option, its lighter and makes more space, I notice Ford are back to all space savers.

It used to be Law that a Taxi had to carry a spare wheel.

Spare wheel and a bale of hay in the black Hackney cabs, wasn't it? (Or was Blue Peter wrong?)
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
a couple of years ago we did a 4000km loop on dirt bikes, which included crossing the Simpson Desert. On the way up the Oodnadatta Track, we spent a couple of nights at William Creek - partly because there was beer, but mainly because we wanted to take a flight over Lake Eyre https://www.williamcreekhotel.com/flights/

We met an older couple who were doing the "outback" experience & driving through to Alice Springs ( about 800km north )
Anyway, they were in a BMW X3 & had a flat tyre. Of course - no spare. The guy at William Creek had picked them & their car up & taken them back to William Creek which is literally a pub, a campground, fuel & a very limited / basic workshop, as well as the airstrip for scenic flights. The tyre was beyond repair & he only stocked a very limited number of tyres in the common Toyota 4x4 sizes . . .
The only source for the tyres was from BMW dealer, the nearest one of which was in Adelaide - about 1000km south. So they were stuck there until a tyre could find its way up there on a load of general freight

"but its a four wheel drive"

not much use without a spare or two once you get away from the capital cities

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Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Although nowadays truckers don't carry spare wheels, mostly for fear of them getting pinched I imagine, but it's also regarded as dead weight, local haulage firm when they got a new truck would take the spare wheel off when delivered and put back on on old wheel fitted with a tyre with just a few millimetres of tread on it.

I bought two ERF's second hand and neither came with a spare wheel, and although we equipped them with one, in 14 years never was one used at the side of the road.

most trucks running up & down the major highways here dont carry spares either, mainly to save weight & they usually have a 24 hour call out service for trucks. Not uncommon to see the remains of blown truck tyres on roads though, the heat can really take a toll at times & if you have a lot of tyres you can drive a long way without realising one has an issue . . .

however, once you get off main routes, into more rural & remote areas & especially on gravel roads, then spares are essential

when i was running a cotton stripper for a contracting team lastt year, our home base was a farm about 50km west of Moree NSW. They also ran a couple of road trains = one of which had the ability to alter tyre pressure for all the tyres from the cab. There was an airline to each tyre.
Anyway, one weekend while the driver was having a few days off, the trailers went into the workshop to get new brakes. The farm manager reconnected the trailers & parked it up, ready for the driver to jump in it on Sunday night. Trouble is, he somehow got the air hoses mixed up . . .

Anyway, Russel turned up on Sunday, started the truck, did his usual inspections, built up air & then turned the tap for the airbags & headed off down the black track ( vast black soil floodplains in western NSW, with mainly gravel roads. When dry, most people drive on side tracks beside the gravel, as its generally smoother & the dust isnt as bad ). As he built up speed, he thought the trailers were pulling fairly heavy, but he thought it must just be the black soil. But then, the trailers were empty, it was getting heavier pulling, it didnt make sense. So - he stopped to have a look . . .
Because the air hoses had been hooked up incorrectly, he'd actually released the pressure from the trailer tyres. 36 of them. Tubeless . . .
He said when he got out of the cab & saw it, he nearly vomited
All the ( nearly new ) trailer & dolly tyres had broken their beads & the sidewalls had that bluey colour from running flat on the black soil . . .
36 tyres
he said he was nearly sick . . .
So - he rang Myles in the workshop ( this was Sunday night by now ) who came out with a compressor & air cannon to pump up the tyres again. 36. Tubeless, that had broken their bead. Apparently theywent thru two tanks of petrol in the air compressor :ROFLMAO:


yeah, tyres are a big thing here
 
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A spare wheel - or lack of one - is non negotiable for me when purchasing a car.
The last two “family” ( ie - the wife’s ) cars we’ve bought, Merc & BMW were both instantly rejected due to a lack of a spare tyre.
Both times, we bought Subaru, as even in their top line Outback models they still had a full size spare 👍
Space savers are referred to as "suicide" tyres here, nothing more than a death wish on NZ roads.
 
a couple of years ago we did a 4000km loop on dirt bikes, which included crossing the Simpson Desert. On the way up the Oodnadatta Track, we spent a couple of nights at William Creek - partly because there was beer, but mainly because we wanted to take a flight over Lake Eyre https://www.williamcreekhotel.com/flights/

We met an older couple who were doing the "outback" experience & driving through to Alice Springs ( about 800km north )
Anyway, they were in a BMW X3 & had a flat tyre. Of course - no spare. The guy at William Creek had picked them & their car up & taken them back to William Creek which is literally a pub, a campground, fuel & a very limited / basic workshop, as well as the airstrip for scenic flights. The tyre was beyond repair & he only stocked a very limited number of tyres in the common Toyota 4x4 sizes . . .
The only source for the tyres was from BMW dealer, the nearest one of which was in Adelaide - about 1000km south. So they were stuck there until a tyre could find its way up there on a load of general freight

"but its a four wheel drive"

not much use without a spare or two once you get away from the capital cities

View attachment 923210

View attachment 923211
I wouldn't even consider going outback with out two spare wheels and some additional method of puncture repair.
 

Bald n Grumpy

Member
Livestock Farmer
2 water board blokes with a truck and mini digger on a trailer questioned their boss whether they should follow the route they'd been set he said fine don't worry about the big blue sign saying unsuitable for larger vehicles.
500yds up the lane 2 flat tyres on one side of the trailer
Mini digger unloaded and tracked back down lane so they could back the trailer out
Sat for the rest of the day waiting for a national tyre company to come and change wheels Even took a photo on his phone to prove he'd used the right torque settings on the wheel nuts
 

manhill

Member
Had an idiot come into the yard on friday because he'd got a blow out due to a pot hole on the road at the end of our drive. I pointed out that it was a public highway and nothing to do with us and his reply was that we'd made the pothole because of farm traffic. Told him to do one and have now had a letter from his solicitor requesting payment for the tyre! I am going to run with this as I would like to see what the small claims court says seeing that the pot hole is on a public highway and 100m from our farm entrance. I am going to run up this idiots legal bill for a few months.
good luck but the way blame is apportioned these days I'm probably guilty for part of that hole as well cos I use the roads!
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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