I saw this and thought to myself, I must really be getting old.
Not only can I remember free air at virtually every gas station, I can remember being aggravated at having to pay a quarter for it
The last time I had to put air in a tire at a gas station it was $1.25.
Lucky for me I just happened to have that many quarters in my pocket.
It was my daughters car.
I have even seen the damn things that take Debit Cards now.
I finally said Fuck All Y’all and went and bought a couple of 12 volt air pumps and threw them in my rigs.
I also like to carry a big can of Fix A Flat.
That reminds me, I need to grab a couple more cans and I also need to get another set of Jumper Cables. One for both rigs.
It amazes me but nobody carries jumper cables anymore.
I guess I am getting old.
I think maybe these people need to get stranded out in BumFuck a couple of times.
Wised my ass up in a hurry.
Well, jumper cables might become a bad idea if you’re stupid enough driving an ultramodern french car with all kinds of electronic shit installed. Might really fuck up electronic circuits due to potential overload.
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This is why no one carries them anymore, they are afraid of this. I have seen a guy with a newer rig refuse to give a stranded lady a jump in her old Ford pickup in a shopping center parking lot for that reason. I whipped over and got her going in under two minutes.
Even modern cars can jump or be jump started if you just hook the cables up and let it sit and charge for five minutes first.
Then the load isn’t that much.
No one wants to take that chance, I get it.
Just one more reason for me to avoid the motherfuckers.
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Yes. I agree with you 100 percent!
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Today, any repair shop in my AO will only use those portable power packs to jump start these newer vehicles. The shop I use refuses to use the portable ac powered jump starters or even the plug in trickle charge battery chargers unless they are completely removed from the vehicle.
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You know what? You make a good point. I keep forgetting about those little jump starter packs. I may just get one of those instead of new cables. Them can be handy little units.
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Yeah, but those frickking things are always DEAD when you need them!
I always carry jumper cables, and know how to use them on new cars. My wife’s Hyndai requires you to disconnect the battery before charging it. Otherwise the charger sees some kind of weird load, and won’t operate.
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You also have a point. I guess carry both. The cables can charge the jumper pack and then you can use it.
LOL!
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Lithium batteries have their own issues but one of those jumper packs is on my list.
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Until they are dead cause ya forgot to keep them charged…
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Don’t forget a plug kit and pliers, tire won’t hold air or fix-a-flat with something stuck in it…..
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I still have one of those out in the garage, need to pick up a new one. the last time I went to use it the brand new tube of rubber cement, never opened, had dried out.
Guess they’ll do that after fifteen years….
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Where I live, air’s still free at gas stations, and I got jumper cables, a tow strap, and misc. tools in the toolbox on my pickup. My pappy taught me ya never know what yer gonna find down the road, so best be prepared. Course, the biggest town within a hunnerd miles’a here has a population of 80,000 and it’s over an hour away, hour’n a half north to St. Louis, which we avoid like the plague…
We hafta navigate around a lotta tractors and combines certain times of the year, but it’s worth every minute. And my “shooting range”? Yeah, out back down by the creek. Y’all can have that city livin’, I tried So.Cal. for 5 yrs back in the 80’s, didn’t leave a thing I’d go back for.
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I would dearly love to live out in the country again.
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About October of last year coming out of a WalMart noticed my right rear being durned near flat and me being in Arkansas I figured on just asking a few of the many pickup drivers around where the nearest air was. As it happened the first guy I asked say’s “Looking about the same age as me (63) you probably ain’t gonna like having to pay near a buck an’ a quarter, a quarter at a time for what you’re gonna need.”
I says, “No shit.”
Fellow shuts down and gets out, unlocks his toolbox reaches in and grabs what probably was the nearest thing, holds it up and says, “Well while your here anyway might as well go back in and grab yourself one of these.”
Which I did except that I bought a pair. One for the ol’ lady’s car I happened to be in that evening and one for my pickup once we got back home.
Bicycle tire pump technology has come a long way since time was I was riding the damn things. Nowadays a feller can get ’em foot operated and capable of, I’m pretty sure, airing up probably a tractor tire. Took 125 pumps of that little 8 or so inch cylinder to bring the ol’ lady’s tire from 0 to 32 so if I was to guess on what it’d take to do an actual tractor tire I reckon it’d be better before trying to make sure there’s a goodly supply of beer laid in before calling the four or five friends I got left to come by an’ help me try.
Another good thing about them little pumps is folding small enough so’s to fitting ’em into a shoebox or, thereabouts. One last ‘another good thing about nowadays technology’ is those battery powered impact drivers. Found that out this past July when I’d been way out on gravel coming back from visiting an’ about near got myself a heatstroke “twirling” the four-way. I was laid up aside the tire catching my breath before breaking that last contrary lugnut when another feller older’n me drives by an’ notices I’m looking pretty washed out.
He stops and reaches into his bed and hands me a Porter Cable – which back when I was still doing Milwaukee Hole-Hawgs in my electrical construction youth considered “too dainty” – but it weren’t. Now I got me two of them battery powered impact drivers too.
Money well invested if you ask me.
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Yessir, them little things have come a long ways since the first one I ever saw. I have a couple of the little 1/4 drive jobbies. Handier than heck.
I had a buddy give me a DeWalt 18 volt with a battery that is 3/8’s drive. I need to go find me a charger for it though.
I currently have one of those foot operated pumps behind the seat of the Caballero too.
I also need to go down to Horror Freight and pick me up another one of those little cheapie floor jacks for that thing. You can get them on sale once in a while for about twenty bucks.
Beats the HELL out of the old 80’s Bumper Jacks.
Them things was scary.
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In the early days after I inherited my father-in-law’s ’69 Cutlass, the battery went dead at a Hardee’s. A kind redneck in an old van offered to jump my car but the aluminum cables I had wouldn’t carry the current to turn the 350 over. He actually took the battery out of his truck and put in in my car to get it started. Proud to be a redneck myself.
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Us Rednecks need to stick together. I have done that for people several times over the years. Get the thing running and then swap them back.
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Damn Right! REDNECKS RULE!
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Can’t swap batteries, near the liberal cities with new cars, as soon as you disconnect the battery, the computer resets the check engine light codes and you need to drive it for a while before the vehicle can be inspected. I guess if you leave the donor car running or have a few weeks to drive the car to set the codes it won’t matter.
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Id’a just replied on your reply Phil but I noticed my crossposting as “JB” was jumpin’ on ahead of me an’ as he is apparently “nearby” I thought to tell him I’m located south of West Plains (MO) near the Salem Plateau of the Arkansas Ozarks. An’ any of us even thinking about being even that near to St. Louis would probably have us crippled up emotionally for at least a week. Longer’n that if the Lanton Missouri beer store wasn’t under a half hour north. County I live in being one of them ‘dry countys’ y’all probably think are only nowadays in the history books.
DeWalt cordlesses is a tool I am familiar with but being as I was always like I says a Milwaukee tools guy I never owned one. Not saying I never would it’s just that since the Porter Cable almost surely saved me from having to have the local volunteer fire department mulling over whether they ought call in a National Guard helo to try to extract me from where I was I figured I owed ’em some.
Never neither checked into the prices of the DeWalts either so not being able to provide comparison pricing about all I’d advise other than that is going with at least the 20 volt over the 18. And go with the Lithium battery pack to which I can say from experience will hold a charge better’n the one late 80s early 90s battery powered Milwaukee 18 volt hammer drill I actually did own. Still do but buying a replacement battery for that nowadays would be near 70% of the price I found the set of (rotary & impact) Porter Cables to be. $80 for just the battery for the Milwaukee versus $144 for the 3/8 rotary and the 1/2 inch impact with 2 batteries and one charger. Could be trying to get just the DeWalt charger resembling me trying to get just the Milwaukee battery. Of course your mileage may vary.
Now where the jack’s concerned (admitting total ignorance of the worst-case driving surface you’re likely to be finding yourself on) I’ve found the simple screw-type scissors platform design (8 inch upper and lower plate) is perfectly adequate for me – plus collapsed it’d probably be a significant space-saver over the floor jack. Another plus in that department for me is my jack’s nut is the same size as my truck’s lugnuts. Last plus is its being handy for fencing (the American kind not the Pajama Boy with the screenwired face shield kind) and leveling the still and other such shit that needs leveling. I guess in a pinch it could be used to lift the belly of a fat girl to get to her what for. But whatever is the what for for a fat girl I have trouble remembering it’s just that I hear the kids I have to hire to fix my occasional computer and/or my tv remote mentioning it might be handy for such as that.
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Actually JK I live north of Cape Girardeau across the river. I hate what the Shitcaghole politicians have done to my lil’ piece’a paradise, but I love my hills and lakes. Cedar Lake is a great Crappie hole, my lil bass boat has a 9.9 Merc on it so it suits me fine. Trouble is the Morels and Crappie start hittin’ about the same time and I gotta decide which I wanna do on my days off. That “Big Town” I referred to was Mt. Vernon, a good hour north of here, Carbondale’s closer and where all my damn doctor’s are, (I’m 64 and was a wild one when I wuz younger, so I’m pretty used up) and I hate even drivin’ in that mess. When I ride, I head thru the hills and stay outta any town over a pop. of 1000, which ain’t hard. Where I live, address Vergennes, has a pop. of 300. Quiet and peaceful is how I’m livin’ my old age, brother.
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You know you’re getting old when young cuties look at you and automatically assume you’ve got jumper cables and an air pump.
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Gentlemen, we have a winner.
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And where I live at minimum a two ton come along.
And one last thing as you’ve pluraled “cuties” – usually there’s two vehicles in the mix and neither wishing to drive in reverse for more’n a hunnert or so feet, a chainsaw.
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I dont know if the have them but Caseys General Store still has free gas
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In a several states there are laws that locations with air pumps must provide that air free of charge (Connecticut IIRC), but some states have a caveat that you must purchase something there too (California, again IIRC). Many will still put a coin receiver on their compressors but if you confront them about it they will override it and give you the air free. It’s a pain in the ass though since the attendants usually barely speak english and even fewer of them know the laws. It’s almost worth it just to pay the fifty cents to avoid the hassle which is what I am sure they are counting on lol.
On the other hand, modern tires and wheels are pretty well engineered. I had a 2010 Malibu that I got in 2012, don’t think I ever had to put air in the tires, not counting tire replacement obviously.
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