spare tyre woes

back at the end of June, while I was having my wisdom teeth out someone broke into my car.

I'd left it parked on the nature strip rather than in the drive to make life easy for J. In retrospect I should have put it at the top of the drive, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Anyway, while I was pissed that they'd buggered one of the door locks - the passenger side - there was nothing of value taken and the radio was still there - I wasn't fussed. After all it's a 10 year old Excel with dents in every panel that I bought from a post grad in the Maths Institute for three thousand bucks back in 2007.

So I did the usual things, phoned the cops, who took my name and address and gave me an incident number, called the insurers who told me I wasn't covered for lock damage, knocked on our neighbours' doors to warn them to be careful if they were planning on leaving cars parked on the nature strip.

And that was that, until last Saturday, when I put a case of wine in the boot and noticed the floor bent rather a lot. So I lifted up the floor panel and discovered the spare tyre, jack, and wheel brace had gone.

Now garages sometimes take things like that out when they're fixing something and forget to put them back, but I've had other heavyish things in the boot since the last time it was serviced back in March, so I reckon I'd have noticed before now.

Anyway it had gone. And whenever it had gone it was a long time ago. So, you say 'shit' and move on. However I sort of lucked out. I phoned some wreckers to see if they had a suitable spare wheel and jack, and the first one I called said 'Not a drama, $45 for the wheel, $25 for the jack'.

'Sounds good, put them aside, I'll collect them this afternoon'. So after work I drove out to their yard, collected and paid for them - and this is where I lucked out - they'd found me a compatible wheel - with a factory new tyre - and jack from a new car someone had written off and threw in a wheelbrace for free. So while I was $70 down it felt like I'd come out ahead ...