I was driving to work on Tuesday, when out of the blue, a low tyre pressure warning came on.
I ignored it. I’m not usually so reckless, but I was pretty close to the office, so I thought I’d check it when I got there.
Which I did, realising that the air was escaping from my front tyre so quickly I could hear it.
With the help of my colleague, I set about trying to change my tyre – something I hadn’t done for YEARS.
I grabbed all the tools from the boot, and got out the little space saving tyre.
And then I got stuck.
First off, I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to get the covers off the wheel nuts, and after some frantic Googling I realised that there’s a little tool in the boot specifically for this purpose.
Next up were the wheel nuts, which were loosened without any problem, but then I ran into some trouble – the wheel just WOULDN’T move.
I pulled it, I kicked it, and still nothing happened.
This seemed like the right point to finally consult the manual.
There was one additional step I had missed, and my hope was that this would help me magically release the wheel.
I followed the instructions and screwed a special plastic gadget into one of the wheel bolt holes (I’ve no idea what it’s called).
It didn’t work, the tyre was still stuck, and that’s where WD40 came in.
With the grease applied, the wheel started to move – fantastic.
As I pulled the wheel off, it slipped and put a whole load of weight on the little plastic gadget and guess what, it snapped it clean off.
Now the wheel was off but there was plastic threaded in one of the wheel bolt threads.
At this point I had to admit defeat and call for support from a professional who removed the threaded plastic and put my lovely space saving tyre on.
I’m sure the little plastic gadget seemed liked a good idea when the engineers were designing the steps to remove a tyre on a modern car, but I can’t help feeling this solution has been over engineered.
Are you ever guilty of over engineering a solution, is it worth thinking through if there is a simpler way to achieve the same result?