[hillsnrains]

Originally Posted by suzuki san

both the left hand side tyres had burst.

I feel sorry for the pain you have gone through. A rear scenario (even though there are quite a few BHPians gone through 2 tyre failure scenario). But I should say you have tackled the things perfectly

Thanks for putting your experience very lively. Now I can say, I am better prepared for this kind of scenario, when ever where ever it occurs.

Originally Posted by suzuki san

Carry a second spare wheel and tyre? That's going to eat up the luggage space.
4. Is there any point investing in the electric type jacks? There are some for sale on car websites. Some electric and some inflatable type. I would have thought the inflatable ones would be better in situations where the car is in the mud alongside the road.

I don't think it make sense to carry second spare wheel/tyre.
Electric jacks, especially inflatable ones will help in rainy seasons (one may not get hard surface to rest jack). I do not have one, but now I am thinking to have one.
Here is one instance where eclectic jack could have come to my rescue: I was travelling on a red hot day (read 43+ temperature) in the afternoon and my tyre got burst. There were no trees or shadow area around, hence started changing the wheel in a hurry. My bad luck jack slipped and stuck underneath the vehicle. I have to request quite a few people to help in getting the jack out.

[fine69]

This reminds me of one 'I shouldn't be alive' episodes. A guy in his 4x4 decides to drive far in the desert, along with his daughter. He was carrying 3 spares. He had driven in the same area a lot of times earlier but this time one by one he started getting flats, thanks to the sharp rocks in that Australian desert.

Now when I started watching it I was like, 3 spares look like an overkill, who carries 3 spares. But 15 minutes in the episode he had 4 punctures and he tried to drag his huge SUV on 3 tyres but it got hot and gave up.

My point, one cannot be prepared for everything. I mean what if something went wrong with the electronics in the engine. So what would I advise?

Avoid driving in the dark, especially when you have a female companion. If you must, well, then stock up spares for anything and everything you can think of. However, there is no guarantee that things still wouldn't go wrong. There's only so much you can prepare for.

[poised2drive]

I have to agree with the Murphy's law -Anything that can go wrong will go wrong .
And this is beyond our scope of work. I am happy that everyone has coped up well with the situation and lived on to tell the tale .

Well, I had my share too but fortunately, it was my dad who was the in-charge and I was a boy of 10-11 [ now I am 26].
To recount the whole story is a bit tough since it's been more than a decade but I would try my best .
This happened in circa 1998-99.We bought a well maintained 118 NE from Pune and decided to drove it back to Madanapalle [ a town in AP , situated in between Bangalore and Tirupati] . we were 4 [ mother and father, me and my elder sister]
Since it was more than a 16-18 Hr drive [ distance is almost 1000 Km], we hired a driver and then started from Pune in the morning around 7 a.m and there were no night stops but to directly reach our destination. I remember we planned to take the NH-4 from Pune to Blore and then Madanapalle [MPL] but again decided against it since my father thought it was too long and there were shorter routes and thus we crossed Satara and left the NH towards Sangli and decided to go via Hospet and Ananthapur. And we crossed Maharashtra and entered Karnataka . I don't really remember through which places we passed but we traveled for long time without any trace of any towns and even the traffic was also thin .
Except for the deserted roads, everything went on well and luckily, nothing happened in those wee hours on those godforsaken places.
We crossed Ananthapuram around in the 4 A.m. and these roads were well known to my father and around 7-7 30, we were around 10 km from our destination and then there was that ear-blasting sound !!! The front side tilted towards left and we could see the front wheel come out and roll over
The car moved on for some distance and stopped. Nothing happened to anyone apart from some tensed moments. And I am sure this must have been due to the potholed pavements and bad condition of roads.
then I guess my father made some calls and my uncle brought a car from town and we , along with the luggage got into it and moved on. My dad and driver stayed with car. Later, the car was brought home in the evening.

So that was my story!

[suzuki san]

Originally Posted by Patriot_Vishwas

Had the same(well, almost) incident a month ago.
We(5 guys) were on our way to Gokarna from B'lore and we suffered this horrible accident just after a town called 'Kyaatsandra' at 1 in the morning.
The RHS tyres suffered sidewall punctures(speed was ~30Km/H) but I was able to safely take it to the shoulder.
Actual reason: The headlights do not offer sufficient illumination and this stretch of tarmac(riddled with potholes) had Sodium Vapour lamps illuminating them!
The car was also fully loaded(5 occupants + cargo) and the tyres were under inflated.
Reason given by the good cop: "You failed to perform the Ganesh puja".

Unlike your (rather impressive) list of cargo, I only had the Screw Jack, Socket Spanner and a punctured Stepney!
We got lucky as we found a Policeman who actually offered help(His esteemed colleagues who checked us out a few minutes before, offered brilliant advice: Roll up the windows and lock yourself inside the car).
He offered a ride to the nearest 'Puncture Repair Shop' and ferried us back and forth till all the three tyres were 'repaired'.
We cursed our luck, the car's low ground clearance, the illumination of the headlamps and my massive fish-up...and moved on.

I now carry two spare tyres.

Originally Posted by Mr.Boss

One of my colleague faced a similar situation (2 flat tyres) in a deserted state highway without any traces of traffic. Luckily all 4 occupants were gents and managed to walk few kms to get the help. Later he started using 2 spare wheels (2 space saving spare wheels in the place of 1 normal spare wheel) for past 1 year and he never got a chance to use them (touchwood)

This could be one of the solution and I'm planning to get one for my car as well.

Regarding mobile signal, it is always better to have connection from 2 different service providers. We (family of 4) have Airtel as our primary service provider and the secondary being Vodafone, Aircel, Idea, BSNL. Each one with different service provider and combination of Postpaid and prepaids (lesson learnt after a bad experience) with this we manged to have minimum 2 & maximum 5 different service providers everytime.

I had my worst experience with my previous car (Linea) breakdown on a Saturday night. After trying out various (almost all) possibilities, got a helpline by late night.

Mr. Boss,
Two space saver wheels sounds like a good idea. Never thought of that option. The next question is where would we get such wheels? Are they readily available in tyre shops?
I had also thought about "run flat" tyres but as far as I can see "Good Year" does not do them in the size I require.
Still, it's another avenue worth investigating.

Also your idea of different service providers is good as well as one of the suggestions by Grrr7 to have a BSNL or MTNL SIM card as a spare.

Grrr7,
I hope I never have to suffer Murphy's law and have 3 flat tyres!!

Hillsnrains,

I was also thinking the same. An inflatable jack option for the rainy season would be a sensible back up. Also, to be honest I found it a real struggle to lift the car with the original jack. I know I am getting on in years a bit but even the two young guys who stopped to help had to work the jack together to lift the car. Although the temperature was just about 20 C we all were dripping with sweat and I could hardly breathe by the time we finished.

This is the wonderful part of Team BHP. To get so many ideas from different people who may have experienced similar situations in the past.

Thanks guys for all your inputs and look forward to more comments.

Regards,
SS

[Mr.Boss]

Originally Posted by suzuki san

Two space saver wheels sounds like a good idea. where would we get such wheels?

Tyres can be purchased from tyre stores, but when it comes to (space saver) wheels, I doubt if it is readily available in market. Only source is A.S.S

Originally Posted by suzuki san

I had also thought about "run flat" tyres but as far as I can see "Good Year" does not do them in the size I require.

One more possible / worthy solution at the cost of high investment + low FE (I agree safety matters more than penny)

Let me revive this thread.

The answer to the title-question: yes, 3 times. Here are the details in chronological order:

The Maiden Adventure In 2011

1. Where were you stuck? Somewhere between Sonamarg and Zojila just before the midnight on a steep+narrow+rocky+slushy+pot-holed/cratered track on our way to Leh.

2. Why were you stuck? My erstwhile Linea was hanging on a rocky cliff without any traction on any of her wheels, thanks to her 165 mm ground clearance.

3. How did you come out? Four people, who came in an Innova taxi behind our Linea, helped us by pushing Linea from behind and sides, while I accelerated to safety.

4. What were you stuck in? My erstwhile 2009 petrol Linea 1.4 FIRE with 30,987 km on odometer.

Please click here for more details.

The Chaos At Karnal In 2012

1. Where were you stuck? Somewhere between Karnal and Chandigarh in the afternoon on our way to Kinnaur-Spiti-Lahaul circuit.

2. Why were you stuck? The front right tyre of my erstwhile Linea got burst.

3. How did you come out? I had handled punctures in the past. But, tyre burst, that was the first time. Me and wife were shell-shocked for a few minutes, thanking our stars, fate, luck, gods, et al for saving us from anything serious. I unloaded all the luggage from the boot, removed and fitted the spare wheel and continued our drive to Chandigarh, where I got all the 4 tyres replaced before continuing our drive to Shimla.

4. What were you stuck in? The same Linea!

Visit here for more details.

The Great Rescue Operation By The Army In 2015

1. Where were you stuck this time? A few km after Thambi View Point, Zuluk, East Sikkim in April 2015.



2. Why were you stuck? My XUV 500 left my control and started sliding towards left. No amount of manoeuvre could change the direction and it straight away went to the road-side drain filled with snow upto the brim with two wheels on the left in deep snow and the remaining two on the road.



3. How did you come out? A group of Royal Enfield riders from Shimoga, KA informed the nearby Army check post and the great Indian Army personnel came in their mighty truck and rescued my XUV 500! Later, we continued our non-stop drive to Guwahati!



4. What were you stuck in? My 2013 XUV 500 W8 FWD.

The details are here.

Some more FAQ:

Who were with you, when your car got stranded? My wife.

Will these 'incidents' deter you from driving to far away destinations in future? No way. I learn lessons from these 'incidents' and drive to the newer destinations.

Did you ever feel that these 'incidents' could have been avoided had you taken more care and precautionary measures? Yes, I did. In the first 'incident', I should have started the next day to Leh; in the second, I should have replaced those worn out tyres at Bangalore itself before starting the trip, and in the third, I should have switched off the ESP, which might have helped.

[Tanveer_2558]

Originally Posted by J.Ravi

Did you ever feel that these 'incidents' could have been avoided had you taken more care and precautionary measures? Yes, I did. In the first 'incident', I should have started the next day to Leh; in the second, I should have replaced those worn out tyres at Bangalore itself before starting the trip, and in the third, I should have switched off the ESP, which might have helped.

As i can see the picture, It makes it think, Would it have helped if your's was an AWD version?

Originally Posted by Tanveer_2558

Would it have helped if your's was an AWD version?

Even switching off ESP, as recommended by the owner's manual, might have helped avert that incident, IMO. AWD would have definitely helped.

[ashis89]

Incident 1:
Back in 2008, had gone to a function with my parents in our ex-M800. The parking was a small field. I drove to one corner to park and suddenly the car just sank in the ground. The front two tyres were completely with the car resting on the underbody. Tried self recovery but the clay (yes, Clay!! ) was too soft and slippery. With some help from people around we pushed it out in 5 mins. A couple of unknown drivers made the same mistake and we helped them out too. Finally, the organizers blocked that area of the field.

Later on I got to know that only a couple of days back, the organizers had filled mud (silt from river bed) in that part to level the ground. It had rained heavily a few hours back and the mud had turned into sticky clay. It had not bed in properly and was very soft. Even walking into it meant that your shoe went in a foot into the mud.

Lesson learnt: Never tread into unknown territory with out proper recce of the area. Since then, I have never been bogged down.

Incident 2: While on a trip to the hill station called Daringbadi, my host in the place, who was learning driving, had driven his car down the road into a sugarcane field. He pleaded me to help recover his car. I was expecting a badly damaged car. But when I visited the site, I saw the car had a few small scratches. It had rolled down a steep (40 degrees probably) ramp beside the highway and landed in a soft empty sugarcane field. The only way of recovery (with out a tow truck) was a narrow exist from the field and 90 degree turn to immediately climb a 8 ft high ramp onto the highway. Luckily, the ramp was hard ground.
The opening was cleared to make way for the car. Since the land belonged to the car owner, he called his helps. By the time I had exited the field, we could smell the clutch burning (all because of the soft black soil). Then many multi-point turns later, the car was finally aligned at an angle to the road. It was not possible to keep it perpendicular (ideal case) due to lack of space. Some insane revving, push from the people around and turning the steering continuously to get grip, I got it out in the next 5 seconds.

Lesson learnt: Always learn driving in an open flat ground only. Venture out only when you have mastered the ABC and the steering.

[mayankk]

I read this thread and I thought I would have stories through and through, having owned used vehicles only. Surprisingly though, nothing in my experience counts as being "stuck". At the most, stops. Wastage of a couple of hours.

One, though, sticks out:
1. Where were you stuck? The parking at Janpath Mcdonalds.

2. Why were you stuck? The Tucson got stuck in the middle of neutral and a gear. So it was neither in neutral, nor in gear.

3. How did you come out? It had become a mountain! Immovable. First we got a mechanic, who came, fiddled, could do nothing, and left. Time elapsed, 2 hours. So finally decided to get a tow truck. It being a sunday, the parking was occupied. The tow truck couldn't get the correct angle to get to the front of the car. The car blocking this move, had he been just half foot in any direction, it could have been done. Unfortunately, the owners were having a sumptuous lunch somewhere and turned up after 2 hours. The tow guys tried pulling the tucson from the back, and ended up pulling a wheelie, which scared them off from ever trying it again. The tucson JUST WOULD NOT MOVE! FInally the car guys came back, and gave an inquisitive look at the tired looking fellow standing in a haphazardly parked SUV, and the tow truck, and reversed and drove off without a word. The car was towed back to Noida finally for GB work.

4. What were you stuck in? 2k5 Hyundai Tucson. Actual clock reading around 1Lac+.


Although this is not a patch on the stories above- I mean, in the city, for 5-6 hours, big dinkums- but this was scarring at another level altogether. This was happening in the middle of a massive delhi meet. Group photos happening elsewhere, and me getting cozy with the car at another place. Eventually people left. A couple of large hearted souls stayed back till I got away, and I am still grateful for the support. You know who you are!