Flat on a Ford

My work truck is a Ford F-250. On Wednesday afternoon, I was driving it down from Sawmill Bench when a rock punctured the passenger rear tire. It wasn't long before the tire was flat and I was parked. No big deal, right? Just put on the spare and keep going. Well. I don't know if you've had a flat tire lately, but this no longer the day of burly jacks and available spares. Evidently, automobile manufactures want to ensure that the buyer is never troubled by the need to fix a flat: The tiny jack will be hidden away in some secret compartment and the six or eight fiddly little tools to operate it will be tucked into a bag under the carpet of the back seat.

On Wednesday, I fooled around for a good while gathering all the pieces, starting the jack, and breaking the lugs free. Before going any further, I decided that I'd better remove the spare from under the back bumper. It was at this point that all the fiddling finally got the best of me. The spare on most pick-ups is on a cable that winds up tight against the bottom of the truck bed. To access it, you simply turn the crank that unwinds the cable, lowering the spare to the ground. Unfortunately, the cable crank is usually two feet in from the bumper up a narrow channel, and thus invisible to the operator. You are supposed to assemble a number of pieces from the bag and stick them up the channel so that you can unwind the cable.

I did all this on Wednesday, but I could not catch the cable crank and lower the spare with any of the tools in the bag. I pushed, pulled, kicked, cursed, banged, and pounded on it for 20 or 30 minutes. I had just started digging for the owner's manual when a couple of guys from the recreation crew pulled up next to me. "Are you using the key?" asked one of the guys. THE KEY? I had no idea what he was talking about. It turns out that Ford is saving the world from the scourge of spare tire theft by making the spare accessible only by use of a small round socket that sits in the bottom of the glove box. The socket "key" must be attached to the end of four or five of these fiddly tools and inserted down the channel of the spare tire winch. Only then can you catch the crank and turn it, releasing the spare.

Holy crap. What a pain in the butt. I can read, so I may have eventually found some instructions regarding THE KEY in the owner's manual. But, I'm sure glad that one of those guys knew about it. It makes me want to toss a lug wrench, a hi-lift, and a spare into the bed of the truck so that I can fix a flat in three minutes instead of 90.