Catcuskate, our spare on our truck seems to get used frequently, and therefore always has plenty of air!!! I don’t know what it is about our truck…probably because it is the vehicle we take on long trips, and is thus prone to blowouts. We just had one last summer on our way waterskiing. We were towing a boat, of course, making the removal of the spare even more difficult. Then try finding a new tire in Santa Barbara on a Saturday afternoon that is the correct size…what a nightmare!!! Then there was the blowout we had in the middle of farmtown in the San Joaquin valley. The tire ripped up the bed of our truck, causing $1400 worth of damage!!! I’m just thankful that hasn’t happened with my horse trailer…and that I have a cell phone in case of emergencies!!!
Speaking of other trailering emergencies…I had a small fire in my truck a while back. I had JUST left my house, and I smelled what I thought was a brush fire. Within seconds smoke started trickling in through the vents (I had the AC on). I pulled over, and a cop happened to be right there, waiting to catch someone speeding. I got out, in a total panic, and the cop helped me get my dog out of the truck (and into the squad car) and stood ready with a fire extinguisher. I popped the hood…but there was no smoke coming from the engine compartment. The cab was now completely filled with smoke, and I was throwing everything from inside the truck out on the sidewalk (my husband keeps a ton of stuff in the truck). We waited for the whole thing to go up, and finally the smoke cleared. The fire engine finally pulls up, with all of my husband’s buddies of course, because he works at the local fire station, AND he was working that day!!! Then the hubby’s pulls up in his fire engine (he drives it) and pretty soon all 6 guys are staring at the engine of the truck, trying to find the now extinguished fire. It turns out some leaves got into the AC duct and got jammed against the fan. The friction of the fan caught the leaves on fire…thus my “brush fire.”
Okay, so here is the point to my long, drawn out tale…what would you do if your vehicle caught on fire while towing? That to me would be an really scary situation. I was in a complete panic over this minor incident, that I couldn’t even find my dog’s leash. I was really lucky the cop was there to think clearly, because I was not!!! I would assume that you would HAVE to unload, but I can’t imagine handling horses on the side of the road! Fortunately I have a diesel, and that fuel is much less combustible than gasoline. That may be part of the reason my truck is still around.
