Well, I don't post very often, but here is another post. This concerns some of the adventures Carey and I had on the Dempster Highway in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. This post deals with our tire problems.
====== Part 1 of our Tire Saga
Here is a slightly modified version of emails that I sent to our kids and grandkids
On July 10th we started out from Dawson City, Yukon Territory, on the Dempster Highway, an unpaved road leading into the Arctic Circle. We were heading toward an Inuit village called Inuvik about 480 miles north of Dawson City. Since you can't travel very fast on this road we planned to stop at Eagle Plains, located about halfway between Dawson City and Inuvik. Eagle Plains is the only place to stop at, so we really had no choice. The scenery was beautiful and we got to Eagle Plains late in the afternoon.
The next day we left Eagle Plains, which is about 250 miles north of Dawson City in Yukon Territory, for Inuvik, Northwest Territories, (a distance of about 230 miles) at about 8:45 a.m. -- a little early for us. We were on the Dempster Highway, unpaved and essentially a dirt road with some crushed rock (shale and slate) covering.
We crossed the Arctic Circle soon after that and then it started to rain. About 60 miles out of Eagle Plains, it started to rain pretty heavily and then a warning came on the dashboard saying that my left rear tire was losing pressure and going flat -- OUCH!
It was already down to 23 pounds per square inch (psi) and going lower quickly.
So we pulled over on the side of the road and quickly considered our options. Considering that it was raining pretty hard, we were on a dirt road that was already very muddy, my spare tire was under the car (a Chevy Tahoe) and requires a good deal of time to unlock and remove and the rear tire was losing air quickly, we only had one option: Apply the Fix-a-Flat (tire sealant in an aerosol can) as quickly as possible! Considering that I had never used it before and didn't even know about it until my son told me about it before we left home, I was pretty skeptical about it being able to stop the leak before the tire would become so flat that the rim would be on the ground. Now the air pressure in the tire was down to 18 (or maybe 17) psi. I can't quite remember.
So I grabbed the can, quickly reviewed the instructions, and kneeled down beside the tire in the midst of a huge mosquito swarm -- they were all over covering my hands, arms and face. I needed both hands to apply the Fix-a-Flat so I could not even effectively wave them away -- what fun!
Then I got back in the car and started driving, closely monitoring the tire pressure warning messages. Soon the air pressure went up to 19 psi -- and then 20 psi -- eventually it went to 21 psi!! AMAZING! Apparently the Fix-a-Flat was working. Now the question was: How long will it continue to work? If it would stay at 20 or 21 psi we could probably make it to Inuvik, 170 miles away. We crossed our fingers and drove ahead slowly, about 30 - 40 miles per hour. We were hoping to find a gas station with an air compressor so we could put more air into the tire and bring it up to 33 or 34 psi -- that turned out to be a vain hope. There apparently are no air compressors along that 170 mile stretch of road. (We later found out that there are 2 spots along that route that do have air compressors and tire repair service, but everyone along the route whom we asked did not know about them. Since it was Sunday they probably would not have been open anyway.)
Well, we finally made it to Inuvik and an air compressor. But the gas station we stopped at had never handled a flat tire with tire sealant (such as Fix-a-Flat) in it. They were willing to try to fix the tire, but we decided that we would wait until Monday morning and check out the other station, which was closed for the evening, but which actually advertised tire repair. That turned out to be a good decision.
I took in the Tahoe in the morning and they assured me they could fix the tire. It took them awhile to actually find the leak. Apparently the Fix-a-Flat had really done a good job of stopping it up. When they finally found it, it was a puncture hole all the way through the tire. They told me that it had probably been caused by a sharp piece of shale rock, which is part of the material used to cover the Dempster Highway to prevent erosion.
Anyway they fixed the tire in less than an hour and inflated all tires including the spare to about 34 psi. Now we were good to go -- we thought.
The Tahoe tire sensors work on all four tires, but not on the spare. So I have to check the spare occasionally with my tire pressure gauge. When I checked it later in the day, the air pressure was only 26 psi. So I took it to the tire repair shop, and they were going to see if it had a slow leak and fix it first thing the next morning. In the meantime we looked at 3 stores for another can of Fix-a-Flat, and all were sold out. However, the last possible store had a good stock of 2 different brands (not Fix-a-Flat) of tire sealant, so we bought 3 cans -- just in case. I really thought that 3 cans was overdoing it a little bit, but Carey (my wife) insisted on it.
Now you may think after reading all this that we had a terrible day. Not at all. Fortunately we had planned to spend all day in Inuvik, so we had time to do all that busy work and still take in all the exhibits at the Great Northern Arts Festival, which lasts all week. Carey was able to see a lot of First Nation crafts and artwork, including an Inukshuk and an Ookpik, and we had a great day in Inuvik.
======Part 2
Well, when we started out on this trip we thought our tires were really good. We have been disabused of that naive optimism.
The next morning I went to pick up the spare tire. It turns out that the valve stem had been leaking and they were able to fix it. Fantastic! Then we took off for Eagle Plains and a motel, about 230 miles away on the Dempster Highway. The weather was cloudy with intermittent rain, which made the road slippery and very muddy. We made it to Eagle Plains without any problems other than the Tahoe looking like a mudwagon. Everything was covered with mud - the taillights, the camera that shows where I am backing, and the license plate was unreadable (you couldn’t even tell that it was supposed to be a license plate). The entire back panel was one full piece of mud except for what had been cleared by the back windshield wiper. However, the important thing was that we had no tire trouble.
The next morning we eagerly left for Dawson City, about 240 miles away. It was raining again and the road was muddy and the mosquitoes were out in full force.
Yes, they have mosquitoes here in 40 to 50 degree weather (Fahrenheit) and they are huge. Whenever you open the car door they fly in and then Carey spends the next half-hour swatting them and killing them off. We have bloodstains all over the car from where she has smashed the little beasties. There are even stories that say one reason the caribou migrate away from here in the summer is to get away from the mosquitoes. As you drive along the road you see low lying bogs of standing water everywhere (they come from the melting permafrost) -- and they make excellent breeding grounds for the mosquitoes.
Anyway, here we are driving along in the mud and about 30 miles out of Eagle Plains my tire warning light comes on. Oh no! Not again. This time it was the right rear tire. You could see the rock embedded in the tire - it was a piece of shale - and hear the air rushing out. So I do my thing with the tire sealant and it looked like it was working. We started driving and figured we would do a repeat of driving on a tire with sealant - just as we had done going to Inuvik. But wait -- about 5 or 7 miles later the same tire started losing air again. Oh no! The sealant isn't working. Well we still have 2 more cans, so I put another can of sealant into the tire and took off. This time however, we were becoming a little doubtful about making it all the way to Dawson City, which was still about 190 miles away. So we turned around and headed back to Eagle Plains where we knew they had a tire repair shop.
They were able to fix the tire with a patch on the third attempt. He could not get the first 2 patches to hold. He said it was because the sealant had made the patches difficult to stick. So we took off again for Dawson City. We were driving along and everything looked good, but now I was nervously keeping my eyes on the tire pressure indicators. They were all staying at about 37 to 36 pounds per square inch (psi) -- but wait one tire seemed to be slowly going lower and lower. That couldn't be happening, we thought to ourselves. Not another flat! Well, yes, it was indeed another puncture hole. This was on the left rear tire - the same one that we had fixed several days before in Inuvik. But this was a new puncture. Out with the tire sealant again. It worked -- for a while -- and then I noticed it was losing air at about the rate of 1 psi for every 5 or 10 miles. It did not look like we could make it to Dawson City that way, and we were out of tire sealant. We had actually used up all 3 cans!
We had been told that to avoid tire punctures we should follow the tracks in the road from other vehicles and drive slowly. But how slowly? The slower you go, the longer it takes to get to your destination, and more air escapes from the tire, so the safest thing to do would be to come to a complete stop with the puncture hole on the road. We were beginning to think that we would never be able to get to the end of the highway and we would be stuck there forever. Was this the Dempster Highway version of Zeno's Paradox?
Now we were more than halfway to Dawson City, so we figured we would try to coax the tire along to Dawson as far as it would go, and I began resolving myself to the fact that I would have to put on the spare tire at some point. Remember, it was still raining and mud was everywhere, so I really did not relish that thought. Then I remembered that we have a portable tire compressor that plugs into the cigarette lighter outlets in the car. I had never considered using it before because it adds air quite slowly. However, at this point I was willing to wait while it adds the air. Waiting sounded better than lying in the mud changing tires. And since the leak was quite slow, I figured it might add air faster than the leak would let the air escape. I was right. So, I filled it up to about 36 psi and hoped it would get me to the end of the Dempster Highway at the turnoff to Dawson City, where I knew there was a tire shop.
Indeed, we finally made it to the turnoff -- and the shop was closed. It seems the guy who runs it had left for Vancouver, Canada, the day before.
OK, so now what? Dawson City was still about 24 miles away. I used the air compressor to pump up the tire again and we headed to Dawson City. I was hoping we could find a shop where they could mount my spare tire and fix the flat overnight or the next morning. I turned into the first tire repair shop I could find but it was closed too. Carey noticed someone walking around near the shop, so I talked to him and told him of my plight. He turned out to be the 17 year old son of the owner and he was working on his own car at the time. He offered to put my spare on right away and to fix the flat tire the next morning. Great!
So we went to Dawson and washed my Tahoe at a coin-operated carwash. We went back the next morning to pick up the tire and have it mounted. The guy at the shop was surprised to see that it was a "white" Tahoe since it had been covered with mud the day before with practically no white paint visible. The shop owner remarked that my tires looked to be in pretty good shape but since they are only 4-ply tires, the Dempster Highway shreds them easily. The son said that he has 8-ply tires on his little Nissan pickup and he still gets flats sometimes on the Dempster. The owner apparently uses 12-ply tires on his large vehicles, and sometimes they get punctured as well.
=========Part 3
Well, our tire adventures continued. We had one rear tire with 2 patches, one rear tire with one patch and a spare tire with a new valve stem. Originally we had planned to leave Dawson City via the Top-of-the-World Highway and take the Taylor Highway in Alaska down to Tok, Alaska. However, the day before that road was closed due to extremely heavy rains that had washed out the road in three different places. About 30 people were trapped in between the washouts. So we had to take the alternate route and double back to Whitehorse and then go to Tok.
On the way to Whitehorse from Dawson City (about 340 miles), we drove mostly on paved roads and everything was cool. It was still nerve racking on the gravel parts where construction was going on, and I kept watch over the tire sensors a lot. However, the tire sensor for the left rear, the one with two patches, was not working, so I had to stop and test it frequently. We were hoping the tire would stay full.
The next day we drove from Whitehorse in Canada to Tok, Alaska, a total of about 390 miles. The road was mostly paved with some patches of construction where it was gravel and muddy. When I got to Tok, I dutifully checked the tire pressure in the left rear tire (the one with 2 patches) and it was holding steady at 35 psi. Everything looked good.
The next morning, Saturday, we were planning to drive all the way to the Denali National Park near Healy, Alaska, I got up in the morning full of eager anticipation and optimism. I checked the tires just to reassure myself that everything was still good. When I checked the left rear tire, the tire pressure gauge read 19 psi. What ?!? This must be a mistake. I tried it again -- same result. Well, maybe I was holding the gauge at a bad angle, so I tried it a third time. Still 19 psi.
OK. Now what? There was a gas station across the street so I went over there and used their air compressor to put some more air into the tire. It was obviously a slow leak, so I didn't have to worry about it going flat immediately. The gas station had a tire repair service, but since in was Saturday the tire repair people would not be in until 9 a.m.
So at 9 a.m. I went over to the service station and told him of my plight. He put another patch over this new puncture and noticed that the sensor (which allows the car's computer to detect when a tire is losing air) had been mangled by one of the tire changes, and that's why it had not been working. He also noticed that the inside rim of the tire was damaged somewhat - probably due to all the removing/replacing of the tire on the wheel rim. He suggested that I replace this tire with a new tire -- however, he did not try to sell me a new tire (he may not have had any of the right kind of tire available). He gave me a name of a large tire outfit in Fairbanks, Alaska, (about 200 miles away) to which we were heading on our way to Denali.
So off we went to Fairbanks looking for a tire shop that hopefully would still be open on Saturday afternoon. When we got to Fairbanks the guy at the tire shop said that we would need to replace both rear tires, so we did. We now have two new tires on the rear axle, and so far everything looks good -- seems like I have said that once before.
Anyway I do feel better about traveling all the way back to Arizona on 2 new tires rather than on one with 3 patches and another with one patch. By the way the tire shop also replaced the tire sensor and reprogrammed it, so now I could tell what the pressure is all the time in the Tahoe without having to use my manual tester.
The 2 new tires held up beautifully, and we made it all the home without any more tire problems.
This concludes our tire saga.
