Aluminum

Yesterday we left Boston and drove south through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and into Delaware. We drove over the George Washington bridge outside of New York. A friend suggested we take the Tappanzee bridge across because people drive erratically on the George Washington bridge but we did not listen. Drivers on the George Washington bridge were erratic. One person in a navy blue sedan was changing lanes and surging ahead only to step on the brakes. I was too anxious to look at the view of New York City. While all that was going on and we were about a third of the way over the bridge we heard a loud thump, thump, thump with every rotation of the tire. I hoped and hoped the truck next to me was making that noise but it was my rear driver side tire. We heard a piece of metal fly off the rear tire and the noise lessened but did not go away. We kept going until we were off the bridge. We took the first available exit and pulled to the side at a construction site. I was heartened that none of my indicator lights lit up. We got out of the car only to see the rear tire was completely flat. We took off the tire and put on the spare. We drove 150 miles on the spare to Delaware. The huge gash in the tire indicated to us it could not be repaired. Today I bought a new tire and had it installed. The tire repair person said he found a piece of aluminum inside the tire that was four inches square and quite thick. Despite the tire problem we had a great day in Delaware today. This is the third flat tire I have had on this car I bought in 2016!