The shoulder is the real danger, not the tire
Changing a wheel is not complicated. Doing it on a narrow shoulder on Highway 290, or on I-35 through Kyle, with traffic passing a metre from your back at seventy miles an hour, is genuinely dangerous. That is the argument for calling Wimberley Towing rather than kneeling beside a live lane with your back to it.
If you are in a car park, a driveway, or a wide flat verge and you want to do it yourself, that is fine and we would tell you so. If you are on the interstate, or on a Hill Country road where the shoulder is really an edge, do not. Stay in the vehicle with your belt on if you cannot get well clear, or get behind the barrier, and call.
What we bring
- Your spare, mounted properly. Torqued rather than spun on by hand, and the flat stowed where it belongs.
- A proper jack for unstable ground. Caliche shoulders and soft verges are exactly where a factory scissor jack sinks, tips, or drops the car.
- Tools for seized nuts and wheel locks. A rusted nut and a factory wrench on a wet shoulder is how people give up and call anyway, an hour later and considerably wetter.
When there is no usable spare
This catches a lot of people. Plenty of newer cars ship with a tire inflator kit instead of a spare, and an inflator will not seal a sidewall tear or a blowout. Plenty of older cars have a spare that has quietly been flat for three years under the boot floor. And a space saver is not a tire you drive to Austin on.
If there is nothing to fit, the car goes on a deck to a tire shop instead, and dispatch will tell you that up front rather than send a technician who cannot help you. That is flatbed towing, and it is better to know on the phone.
Blowouts and shredded tires
A blowout at speed is a different event from a slow puncture in a car park. If the tire has come apart, check the wheel arch and the bodywork before you assume it is a simple change, because a disintegrating tire takes wheel arch liners, sensors, and sometimes brake lines with it. Tell dispatch what actually happened and how fast you were going.
Where these calls come from
I-35 through Kyle and Buda produces the most, because of the volume and the debris. Highway 290 and US 281 produce the worst ones, because of the shoulders. And the caliche back roads produce the slow punctures, because caliche is full of sharp rock.
What it costs
A tire change is priced as a roadside call, not a tow, and you get the number before anyone drives out. See towing rates, and call (512) 375-1215.
Part of our full roadside assistance service.
What a tire change costs
Priced as a roadside call rather than a tow, quoted before the technician leaves, and unchanged on arrival. If it turns out there is no usable spare and the car needs a deck instead, dispatch will tell you the tow price before we come rather than after. See towing rates.
Caliche and sharp rock
The back roads out here are full of it, and it is unkind to tires. A slow puncture picked up on a ranch road often does not announce itself until you are back on the highway at speed, which is precisely the worst place to discover it.
If your tire went down gradually rather than suddenly, mention it. It changes what we expect to find, and occasionally it means the tire can be plugged rather than swapped. Call (512) 375-1215.
Space savers are not tires
The skinny spare in the boot of most cars is rated for about fifty miles at fifty miles an hour, and it is not a suggestion. It has less grip, less braking, and it changes how the car behaves, particularly on a wet Hill Country bend. It is there to get you to a tire shop, not to Austin and back.
If we fit your space saver, we will tell you where the nearest tire shop is and we will mean it. Driving on one for a fortnight because it seems to be holding up fine is how people end up calling us a second time.
Two tires down, or a bent wheel
Debris on I-35 takes out pairs of tires with some regularity, and one spare does not fix two flats. A kerbed or bent wheel will not hold a tire either, however good the tire is. In both cases the car goes on a deck to a tire shop rather than being patched at the roadside, and dispatch will work that out with you on the phone rather than sending a technician who has to shrug at you. Call (512) 375-1215.