Reply To: Discovery in oil pan

[Luke Dwyer]

Incredible.

Makes you almost wonder if it was sabotage. Some minimum wage wrench working on a rich man’s car. . . .

I say this because I once owned a 1926 Packard Eight. Changing the huge 21-inch tires with the lock ring the size of what they used on a Saturn V rocket convinced me to let a local shop with the equipment do the de-mounting and mounting of new the shoes.

All was fine but then I developed a snow leak in one tire. Got worse with time until it needed air every day. Finally I took the tire off myself and discovered someone had sliced off the old valve stems which are outside the wheel, of course, but had deposited it inside the tire. The result was the sheared valve stem was abrading through the inner tube.

It could have led to a blowout — on the front wheel — but I got lucky.

That’s why I do my own work, whenever possible.

–Luke