Flats sometimes occur at inopportune times, too.
A friend of a friend was driving her several-months-old car home to Ann Arbor, MI on the afternoon of Dec. 31 (which was a very cold day with snow on the ground. BRRRR.) About 20 miles from home, she gets a flat tire while driving in a rural section of a major freeway. She pulls over and calls the 800-number that the vehicle manufacturer had provided for complimentary road service. This being late the afternoon of New Year's Eve, it takes about 2 hours for the service guy to show up. He pops open her trunk, takes a look around, and informs her that she doesn't have a spare tire. (Unbeknowst to her, her car came with the 'inflator kit' instead). Without further ado, he jumps in his vehicle and takes off!
By this time, it's dark
and cold out. She's still sitting on the side of the highway with a flat tire. She then calls AAA. They come out after an hour or so, take a look at the flat tire and tell her that it has a large cut in the sidewall and the inflator kit will not be able inflate her tire. She asks if AAA can tow her car to a nearby dealer and they do. With it it being NYE (followed by New Year's Day and the weekend when dealerships in the area typically are closed), it will be three days before the dealership is even open!
She then ends up calling a cab to take her to the airport (15-20 miles away) where she is fortunately able to rent a car. By this time, all her NYE plans have been shot.
On Monday, she contacts the dealer (where her car had been towed). They don't have her tire size in stock (as it is one of these odd-ball sizes that no other models use) so it is another day or two before the dealer can get the tire she needs. The replacement tire is also quite expensive. That, the cab fare, plus the total of 6-7 days of car rental makes this a very expensive flat 'repair' indeed.
She does buy a full-size spare afterwards to prevent this from happening again.
omni