Avoiding Flat Tires

[Jugster]

I put about 500 miles per year on my Model T Ford (when I'm not recovering from surgeries or waiting out a pandemic) and in a dozen years of ownership, I've had but one single, solitary flat tire. And that was because some knucklehead had dumped a pile of building materials at the curb and after the trash was collected, a few roofing nails remained on the street. This kind of debris tends to collect near curbs, so the closer you stay to the crown of the road, the less likely you would be to encounter nails and screws.
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My mistake was to hug the curb while making a right turn instead of staying a car's width away from the puncture-zone. Heck, back when I was a kid, I learned the hard way about keeping my Schwinn's tires out of the "parking lane," so I knew better. But the momentary need to cut a corner so as not to slacken my speed right before a hill was what did me in. Had I swung wide, accepted the speed loss and down-shifted instead, my record of no flats in a Model T would have remained perfect.
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Some lessons are easier to learn than others. Now, I've been married for quite a few decades, but being acutely dense, I have only just recently come to the realization that a clutterbug like myself should never ask his better half where some misplaced item may be—or worse—to ask her for help in finding it. On one particular occasion, such short-sightedness on my part resulted in a hands-on-hips, head moving side-to-side castigation which led with: "Well, if you'd only clean this place up, then maybe you'd be able to find it!"
My reply was to the effect that the word, "maybe," has never been found in any binding contract (and as any schoolboy knows, the word, "maybe" is about as reliably promissory as the parental phrase, "We'll see").
To that irrefutable gem of logic, my beloved retorted, "Well, just so you know, if you don't clean up this mess, I WILL!"
Oh, for a married man, nothing good has ever followed the phrase, "Well, just so you know..." Realizing that I was in a state of unequivocal defeat, I shuffled back into the garage and, while grumbling to myself like Fred Flintstone, grudgingly started box-stacking, picking-upping, throwing-outing, broom-shoving and dustpanning.
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That exercise with the broom and dustpan yielded up an impressive concrete-floor harvest of broken drill-bits, bent up cotter-pins, upholstery tacks, staples, screws, nails and even a couple of rusty, tetanus-impregnated X-acto blades. That no such garage-inhabiting scrap of metal had ever punctured any of my tires amounted to an astounding statistical improbability. Equally surprising was the happenstance that I did indeed find the item I had misplaced, thus proving my wife was right; this occurring simultaneously with her entering the garage to suggest where the misplaced thing might be, only to witness me staring with astonishment at the item in hand—surrounded by a freshly cleaned and neatened garage. You'd think I'd have known better, at that point, than to make eye-contact.
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Oh, well.
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In any case, it was a very lucky thing indeed that I hadn't at some point earned a flat tire right there in the garage, what with all the sharp debris on the floor. I have, since that epiphany, become a devotee of keeping the garage swept nice and clean—much to the unfortunate and insufferable satisfaction of my wife. A word, to the wise, is sufficient: Learn from my experience—and chagrin.
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All that having been said, we now come to the question of whether it is necessary for a brass-car driver to carry spare tires and a jack. Well, if you car has demountable rims, carrying that stuff does makes sense. If, on the other hand, your car has the old-fashioned type of non-demountable wheels... well, maybe not. See, I spend an extra hundred bucks each year for towing insurance and it's good within a one-hundred-mile distance from my Long Island home. When my tire suddenly went flat, I pulled over to the curb, phoned Hagerty and they sent a guy with a flat-bed truck and chains wrapped in velvet. Velvet! If you have that kind of towing insurance and you stay within 100 miles of your home, you don't need to carry spares—and if you keep your wheels away from the curb when making right turns, it may be a whole lot less likely that you'll experience a flat in your brass car.
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Oh. Also, when your wife tells you to clean up, just do it. It's better than getting the twin laser beams and a great, big, Alice Kramdenish "I-told-you-so."

[George House]

Heck, my tires become flat just sitting in the barn. I try to take turns driving them but I have so many that its sometimes years before their turn comes up for a drive. So I place them on jack stands. But when I remove the jackstands and service one for a drive, all tires are flat. Those thats been sitting for a year or more are just at 20-25 lbs of pressure. So I’m thinking about doing away with jackstands and push them occasionally to change tread location on the cement.

[Norman Kling]

Apparently, Long Island does not have what California and many of the southwestern states have. Cactus, Yuccas, puncture weeds, Agave etc. Any off roading could lead to flat tires. I learned it early when we went on our honeymoon in 1958. I was in the Mohave desert with my new wife and decided a picture next to a Joshua Tree would be great, so I went off roading in our 1930 Model A and ran over cactus. Got 4 flat tires. I had 3 mounted spares along and the fourth one was a slow leak so I was able to drive into a repair shop before it went flat.

[Steve Jelf]

I'm often far from any tire service, where it would take approximately forever for help to arrive, so I carry a front spare and a rear spare.

[bdtutton]

I have a 1914 touring with non-demountable rims. My tires/tubes are new so they hold air as well as my modern car. I have been lucky and have not punctured any tires, but I know it will happen. I don't have a desire to pry a tires off the rim along the edge of the road and patch a tube so I have two separate plans to get home if I have a flat.
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The first option is a can of that green slime flat fixer and a portable, high quality air compressor. I am not a big fan of putting that stuff in my tire, but I have pulled nails out of tires and put that stuff in many types of tires and been able to get home. I can replace the inner tube when I get home. My second option is the towing option. The car is over 100 years old...a flat tire is only one of the many reasons that I may be stranded.
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[Allan]

My 1912 chocolate van has Hayes wire wheels, with their demountable rims. My 1917 shooting brake has Kelsey loose lug demountables. Changing/repairing flats on the side of the road is not something I want to do.

Allan from down under.

[Alan Long]

Having a puncture while out driving your T ruins the day completely.
As Allan said the easier it it get moving again by choice of wheels is a smart move.
Not to mention depending we’re it happens it can be downright dangerous!
Alan In Western Australia

[5 WoodenWheels]

Humorous read, well done. I find the content here is generally penned by a more erudite crowd than some of the other forums I frequent. I also use Hagerty, hope I don't have to avail myself of the velvet-clad tow chains. My '23 Touring has a spare and all the tire-changing gear that goes with. In the event of a flat, I'll probably wait for another Model T owner to come along and show me how to change it. I guess I could do a practice run at home but where's the fun?

[Steve Jelf]

Having a puncture while out driving your T ruins the day completely.

Depends on your attitude. For me it's just part of the adventure.

[Poppie]

I agree with you Steve, and my wife has a different opinion.
The only non demountable rims are on the front of our TT....n