Car repair procrastination can make trouble for other drivers, or your wife

In my years of covering traffic, I don’t call incidents “accidents.” Bad luck happens, but preventable mistakes almost always cause road problems.

When we ignore vehicle maintenance, it’s to the detriment of fellow commuters. Fortunately, my recent procrastination with a tire pressure sensor did not block traffic — but it did set my wife, Momo, back.

Tire pressure sensors are vital to a vehicle’s health, especially when driving on pothole and junk-laden Atlanta streets. Ironically, my reaction to a previous illuminated tire light may have lulled me into complacency when that light returned months later.

The saga began when I parked to run a brief errand, and then, as I fired up our 2017 Ford Edge to leave, saw the yellow tire light and heard an alert. It said “Edna” was losing left-rear pressure rapidly.

Sure enough, when I bounced out of the car — at the end of a long work week, no less — I heard the hissing air and saw a screw drilled plum into the tire tread. I had just placed a lunch takeout order a few blocks away from our Chamblee home. Darn it!

Thankfully, a mechanic shop was a short drive away. The tire held air on the ride, and a patch did the job. Edna and I were on our way some 40 minutes and $40-$50 later to pick up lukewarm Thai food.

A couple of months later, that same left-rear tire light came on while I was en route to host my Thursday trivia night at Iron Horse Tavern in Norcross. I decided to press on at freeway speed, as I did not feel any weird vibrations. Sure enough, all tires were up and there were no obvious punctures or hissing sounds. Great as this was, it may have programmed a glitch in me.

The light stayed on, and I went to get it checked a few days later. The dealership service tech could not get the same alert to come on for him. Strange. He told me to come back when it did. I should have just asked him to fix it then.

Since nothing was actually wrong with the tire then (emphasis on “then”), I did not return to the shop when the alert came back. I silenced the alarm immediately every time I drove, telling myself I would get it fixed. I did this for months.

Then my Momo, the studious and tech-driven German, needed to use Edna. Like a good German, she is strict about car maintenance and she was, shall we say, disappointed to see Edna’s tire light on. Oh, I got a call, and I was a smart aleck about it: “Yes, yes, love. I will get it fixed right this very second.”

I swiped my phone screen when the second call from Momo came. The right-rear tire had gone flat at the end of her 1-mile drive to the gym. Momo babied Edna to that same nearby tire place and learned the tire had been slowly leaking for far longer than she had been driving it.

If only Edna’s everyday driver had paid attention to her mild yelps for help.

Since Edna was soon up for an oil change and all tires were worn, Momo got it all done right then, not allowing me to intervene. I just stayed home with my cold plate of crow.

Two days later, Edna’s oil pan cover came loose on I-85 southbound during my early morning drive to work. Instead of driving a couple more miles to 11Alive, I got Edna to a parking lot and called 11Alive Traffic Impact Tracker photog Stephen Boissy for a ride. I did not want to cause Edna more damage or potentially impact someone else.

I was going anyway to take Edna for new tire sensors after work that day, and a AAA wrecker got her to the dealership instead. She is safe and sound now.

Just one day after getting her back, I passed a guy driving on Shallowford Road in DeKalb County with the whole front end of his car bashed in, presumably from a very recent wreck. The bumper was rubbing the tire and a headlight looked to be dragging. But he rode merrily along, smoking a cigarette and seemingly in no rush to get it fixed.

Unrepaired autos can cause more cars to need repairs. Junk can fall in the road and broken vehicles are harder and less safe to operate. All of that increases the likelihood for collateral damage.

We were fortunate that the impact from Edna’s issues stayed in our household, where I will taste that nasty crow for quite some time. Lesson learned, again.

Doug Turnbull covers the traffic/transportation beat for WXIA-TV (11Alive). His reports appear on the 11Alive Morning News from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and on 11Alive.com. Email Doug at dturnbull@11alive.com. Subscribe to the weekly “Gridlock Guy” newsletter for the column here.