I had some excellent responses to my earlier post, trying to figure out what’s going on with the vehicles. For the tire problem to be happening with one vehicle is strange enough, but our truck, as well as my mother’s car? Then there’s the oil thing, in the truck.

First, to address the tires.

Yes, cold most definitely can be a factor when it come to air loss in our area… but not this year! Temperatures have been much warmer than average in our area this year, because of the strong El Niño. We might even have a brown Christmas this year! Yesterday, as I was coming home from a dump run (my last trip of the day), it was even starting to rain. We’ve had winters where both the van and my mother’s car basically froze, saved only by the block heaters, and did not have this sort of air loss.

My mother’s car had all 4 tires replaced not long after we took over keeping and caring for the vehicle from my brother. I had managed to miss hitting some deer, but ended up in the ditch. Much to our shock, I was able to drive straight out without any stop and keep driving, but one tire went flat before we got home. After it was taken to the garage, we discovered other damage and all the tires got replaced. That was about 4 or 5 years ago and, for the amount of driving we do in general, they are still in excellent shape. It’s not like we’re commuting every day on them or anything like that. One tire is newer than the others, after our gravel road conditions caused a blowout about 3 years ago.

The tires on her car becoming unexplainedly flat has mostly been in just the past 6 months or so. I found the right rear tire flat one time, with no cause found. Once pumped up, it held it’s air fine. Then there was the left front tire. When that happened a second time, we got it checked, along with the other front tire by mistake. No signs of any leak. Then, most recently, I checked all 4 tires before going to my mother’s. The left rear tire was almost flat, the left front tire was really low and both right tires were also low, but not as much. The right rear tire was lower than the right front tire.

With my mother’s car, it’s parked in an addition to the garage and, as small as it is, it still barely fits. If I have a passenger, they have to get out of the car before I drive into the garage. In order to get in and out of the driver’s side without the door hitting a counter shelf against the wall and having to squeeze my way out, it is parked closer to the other wall, and diagonally. Which means the driver’s side tires can be reached fairly easily, the rear passenger side tire could be reached if someone really wanted to make the effort, but the front passenger side tire is virtually inaccessible. To check the tires, I have to drive the car out of the garage completely.

Thanks, Silk, for your info about the Schrader valve. I was wondering what it was called! I’ve looked at the tool you linked to. The more I look at it, the more I wonder; have I seen one of these before? With all our digging around what’s left at the farm, trying to find what’s still useful. I may have seen something like that and wondered what it was for. Or, my brain it trying to fill memory gaps. I can definitely see my late bother having a tool like that around. What I don’t know is if our vandal would have one. I tend to find that idea highly unlikely; at least not as something he would have acquired to work on his own vehicles – though he’s taken so many tools from here before we moved in, he may have one among them. Whether he would know what it is, I’m not sure.

Also… I hope that jerk you mentioned got caught and faced the consequences for his actions! Vandalizing people’s tires can cost lives!

To answer some other points brought up:

The truck is a 2011 and, since we’ve bought it, the mileage is over 240,000km/149,130m. I’ve got the vehicle’s history, and a record of the work done on it to get it safetied. It has all new tires and, while they are not the highest end tires, they are certainly not cheap. These are very good tires. We got the vehicle from the mechanic owner of the garage we’ve been going to for years, rather than a dealership. We’ve been burned by dealerships and dealership garages way too many times. I’d rather buy a vehicle from a garage that sells cars on the side, than a dealership that also has a garage, if you get what I mean.

Along with the tires, I know it got an oil change, so basically both the oil and the tires have been driven only by us since we bought it.

A few things did get missed when the vehicle was being prepped for sale. They (both our mechanic and the garage that did the safety inspection) did not see a problem with the battery; that showed up after we started driving it. The tire sensor module’s battery is not something they would have checked, either. No one bothered checking the cord for the block heater, the end of which was neatly tucked away, so no one noticed the plug had been torn off at some point. With this winter being so mild, there is no rush to get that fixed. Of course, being an older vehicle with so many miles on it, I would expect to find things that will only show up by actually driving it regularly – like the driver’s side seat belt being difficult to get latched in place.

The truck is parked in the original part of the garage (where my mother’s car is now, and where the lawn mowers, etc. are stored, were added to each side, much later on). The tires can be easily reached from all sides. However, it’s a longer vehicle, and just barely fits. In order for us to be able to close the garage door (which is broken right now, so it’s open all the time), the truck has to be pulled so far forward, it’s almost kissing the counter against the back wall. The space under the counter is open, so the front bumper can actually go under the counter, just a tiny bit. If we pop the hood from inside, we can’t access the lever under the hood to open it all the way, because it’s right at counter level. If we need to access the engine while in the garage, the truck has to be backed up. However, if someone could manage to get the hood up, they would be able to access the engine compartment from the sides. Even with the truck not pulled all the way in, from the side was the only way I could reach the dipstick.

Speaking of which…

While I was poking around in there, with a utility light hanging from under the hood so I could see, I cleaned off the top of the oil cap, then reached with my phone to take a picture. That was the only way I could see and read what was written on it!

I can just reach that dip stick from the side, enough to pull it out. If I really stretch, I can touch the cap, but not enough to open it, or add oil, without basically climbing the truck. Hence the need for a foot stool!

It never occurred to me that someone might remove the oil through the dipstick. In theory, if they could get the hood up, it could be done but, if nothing else, I would have seen some sign of that in all the gravel dust all over the engine compartment. The top of the cap was covered with gravel dust and clearly hadn’t been touched since the engine was worked on before we bought it. It was thick enough that I could barely see there was writing under the oil symbol.

While there is no sign of a leak under the truck, in the photo above, you can see there is a small section that does look oily. Again, this is something that was visible when I took the picture. Even with the work light above, it didn’t look damp like that while I was checking the oil level.

The gauge layout is completely different from any other vehicle we’ve had, and the oil gauge itself is different from any other vehicle we’ve had. My daughter actually looked it up while I was driving, shortly after we brought the truck home, so we could figure out what it was telling us, and what range for the needle to be in was good or not. That very difference, as well as the different location of the gauge, has had me checking it frequently. It’s where I’m used to the fuel gauge being, in other vehicles we’ve had, so my eyes still automatically go there first. Which is why I can be so sure the oil loss was sudden. There was also no change in driveability.

Well, I still need to head out and pick up oil for the truck – and pick up another parcel at the post office, which is closed right now, so I have to wait another 1 1/2 hours. Unless I take my mother’s car and go to town and talk to our mechanic directly, then hit the post office on the way home. I think I’ll do that.

Assuming, of course, the tires on my mother’s car aren’t low again!

The Re-Farmer

Update:

I didn’t make it into town to talk to our mechanic. Since I was going to use my mother’s car, I made a point of checking the tires, first. Sure enough, the tires on the driver’s side had lost about 10-15psi, with the front tire having lost more. It was raining/snowing at the time, so I fired up the compressor to pump the tires, rather than using the hand pump. The hose is long, but not long enough to reach both sides of the vehicle, though it turned out the passenger side tires didn’t need it.

As I was just getting onto the main gravel road, I realized going to town was not a good idea. That area that’s shaded by the trees and covered in ice had plenty of water on top of the ice. In the time it would take me to drive to town, talk to our mechanic, then drive back, it would probably be starting to freeze, and I use as heck didn’t want to be driving on that with my mother’s car!

So I stopped at the post office, which is inside a general store. They did have the type of oil I needed in stock, so I picked up a couple of litres – and a package that had been delivered yesterday, but not though the mail, so I never saw it! My husband got a delivery notification for it and was wondering. He thought it had been sent by post. 😁

Anyhow.

Once I got home, I just left the oil with the truck and headed inside. We’ve got nicer weather coming up. One of us will grab a stool, move the truck, and get some oil in there when it’s not so unpleasant out.

I was able to send the photo I took yesterday, along with a message asking our mechanic to call me when he had some, saying I had a tires and oil mystery. He didn’t see me until he was closed up for the day, but called me anyhow.

I told him about the tires on my mother’s car, first, since I’d already taken it in for him to check it earlier, and it’s an ongoing thing. Then I told him about the tires on the truck also being low, which surprised him. We’d had the warnings due to the faulty sensor before, so they’d topped the tires up for me, just in case, before, plus I’d checked the pressure before, because of the warnings I was getting.

Then I told him about the oil suddenly being low.

With that, we talked for a bit about how GM is somewhat different from other vehicles (we’ve never owned a GM before), and while it may appear really low on the dipstick, it’s probably just down one liter, not almost dry. The oily moisture visible in the photo I sent it normal.

As for the tires, while it’s possible that our fluctuating temperatures and humidity levels could be affecting the tires, it is still really strange. At one point I told him, if it weren’t for the lack of physical evidence, I’d think someone were coming in and letting the air out of the tires! His response was, knowing where I live, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was. The thing is, if someone had – even some random vandal – there would have been some sort of evidence visible. With my mother’s car, just getting the doors open to access it would have made it obvious. The doors are sagging slightly and don’t latch properly anymore, so I’ve got an old tire, with a rim still on it, in front of one door, and a metal object of some kind I found in the garage in front of the other, to keep the wind from blowing it open. In theory, they could go through the main part of the garage, as there is a doorway into where my mother’s car is, but I’ve got 6 years of collected aluminum stored in that corner, and there isn’t a lot of room to get around the front of the car. The light switch is by the double doors, too, so if someone went that way – even someone who knows the layout of the garage – they’d be knocking over bags of aluminum in the dark. Plus, there’s that dirt flour that would have shown scuff marks and tracks.

He’s asked me to bring the vehicles in, starting with the truck. He’ll take all the tires off and check them. I’ll bring my mother’s car in, another time. I don’t even need to make an appointment. He just asked me to text him, first. Today is Friday, so I’ll do that on Monday.

He’s as perplexed about the tires as I am. Particularly since it’s now happening on both vehicles!