Sophia Money-Coutts is feeling flat-tyred and emotional
My stressful adventure battling tyre trouble at least taught me one thing – where to find the elusive locking nut
It was Fawlty Towers timing. I climbed into my car on Easter Saturday to drive to my sister’s for lunch only for it to start shrieking with a warning alarm: low tyre pressure. I ignored this at first because I wanted a glass of rosé and a Creme Egg and this has happened before when my tyres were fine. Modern car computers tend to be ultra-sensitive. On I motored until the alarm started shrieking more insistently and I heard a funny noise. After slowing and pulling into a Croydon petrol station, I discovered a tyre was flat after all.
Fortunately, opposite this petrol station was a faintly dubious garage with expensive cars jacked up in front of it being worked on by men who didn’t appear to have any teeth.
Hoping that they were better with tyres than dentistry, I wandered over (having cast off my fur coat in a pathetic effort to blend in) and inquired about a replacement. “New or part-worn?” one of them mumbled.
“Part-worn is fine,” I replied, trying to sound airy, as if I made this decision every day, whereupon he led me to the back of this establishment. Here were more expensive cars with no number plates and a teetering pile of tyres. My toothless rescuer ran his hands over a few in a practised way before plucking one free and showing it to me as if a fishmonger flashing a piece of haddock.
I nodded, indicating that this tyre looked good (it looked exactly like all the other tyres), and there followed an extremely embarrassing discussion about where my locking nut was. Strangely enough, being Tatler’s car critic for two years didn’t teach me anything about locking nuts. I opened my boot and together we stood frowning
I needed to pee after all this drama but asking to borrow their bathroom was one step too far
down at a pair of gumboots and an old bottle of Piz Buin sun cream. After a brief casing of my glovebox, he found it there and crouched to work while I hovered over him, before plucking up the courage to ask if he’d mind checking the pressure on my other tyres, too. He grunted assent. I quite needed to pee after all this drama but I decided asking to borrow their bathroom was probably one step too far for all of us. Forty quid lighter (in cash, which meant a jog around the local ATMs), I climbed back into my car and said “cheers” through the window instead of “thank you” in another attempt to seem less like Lady Penelope, although I then slightly ruined this by honking “Happy Easter!”
Still, off I drove, relieved that the tyre was fixed and I was on my way towards a nice cold bottle of Whispering Angel. Alleluia! Five minutes later, the alarm started up again. He hadn’t checked the other tyre pressures, it turned out, and my new one was inflated much higher than it should be. This warranted another stop in a petrol station where I scrabbled around on the forecourt sorting it out. (“And what will your specialist subject be tonight, Sophia?” “It will be petrol stations in Croydon.”)
On the upside, at least I now know what a locking nut is.