The Final Journey of Rusty the Jeep

Broken down on the side of the road in the middle of Detroit. Now what?

It had been a perfect trip so far. I had spent the previous day cruising Sandusky Bay, taking pictures for that guide. I was feeling a little beat up after fighting the choppy waters of the entrance channel off Cedar Point for longer than I had expected to and I decided to treat myself to a night at a cheap motel I knew of just outside of Toledo. The next morning, I headed out for the next leg of my trip, a two-day cruise of Anchor Bay on Lake St. Clair, just past Detroit.

I didn't have a proper towing vehicle of my own when I bought my sailboat, Wanderlust, but I had been offered the use of my brother's old Jeep Cherokee for the summer. My brother was spending the year out of state and I was storing the Jeep for him until he either came back to claim it or found a buyer to take it off his hands. It seemed like the perfect short-term solution for both of us--I could tow my boat for the summer and he had someone to keep up on the maintenance and pay for insurance.

The Cherokee was a beat up 1994 model that we immediately nicknamed Rusty because that was its single defining characteristic. My brother loved driving on the beach during his numerous trips to the Outer Banks and the salt water had taken a heavy toll over the years. I took the Jeep to my mechanic to have it evaluated as a tow vehicle and the most encouraging thing I can remember from the conversation is that he never used the word 'deathtrap' once. His basic opinion was that, while the frame wasn't so badly rusted as to be in immediate danger of breaking, the corrosion was severe enough that it would be almost impossible to replace any parts that failed...and absolutely nothing about the Jeep looked to be in really reliable condition.

Still, the engine seemed strong and the vehicle had both a class III hitch and an electric brake actuator that would work with the new electric brakes I had just installed on Wanderlust's trailer. With my brother's approval, I decided to go ahead and use the Jeep for the summer and hope that nothing serious went wrong. As a precaution, I decided to sign up with Boat US's trailer club, which turned out to be the best eighteen bucks I ever spent. I towed the boat without incident on several trips, never daring to venture much farther than either end of Lake Erie. The Jeep was loud and slightly uncomfortable to drive but it let me finish out the summer sailing season without having to invest in a pickup truck of my own.

The trip up I-94 was uneventful and the Detroit traffic was no heavier than I had expected. As I cleared the downtown, I began to notice that the boat was starting to fishtail. I tapped the electric brake actuator, which stopped the swaying by causing the trailer tires to brake, pulling it back into line with the Jeep. Within a minute or two, the boat was fishtailing again. I had not towed this particular boat through traffic this heavy before and I started to wonder if the unusual behavior was due to the many large trucks passing on both sides of me. I pulled into the far right lane to see if that helped but the trailer continued to sway back and forth and seemed to be getting worse. Clearly something was wrong and I was in about the worst possible place to stop and deal with it.

There seemed to be less than five feet of pavement between the edge of the right lane and a concrete retaining wall, so I slowed down to 45 mph and hoped that, if I could just get a little farther up the road, I could find a proper breakdown lane in which to pull over. The fishtailing became more pronounced and I was seriously starting to worry about losing control, even at my current slow speed. Just as I decided that I couldn't risk continuing on, an exit ramp appeared before me and, even though I had no idea where it led, I jumped at the opportunity to get off the freeway. Luckily, the ramp featured a decently wide strip of grass on the right, so I pulled over there and got out to see what was going on.

I had spent the first half of the summer waiting for a new axle, springs, tires and brakes to be installed on the trailer and I was going to be seriously miffed if any of these things proved to be the problem. I inspected the trailer very closely but could find nothing out of place. It took a few more minutes of staring dumbly at both the trailer and Jeep before I finally spotted the problem. The right rear tire of the Jeep was about half flat. The tires were so large and the Jeep sat so high off the ground that I didn't notice it at first but, upon close inspection, the tire was clearly very low on air. The Jeep was so loud and the ride so rough normally that I had not noticed the tire slowly going flat as I drove along.

I had a spare tire with me but I didn't really want to try to change it on the side of the road. The off ramp was quite busy and I had nightmare visions of an inattentive driver plowing their car into the back of the boat where it currently sat. It would be much safer if I could put some air back into the tire and get to a service station, or at least an empty parking lot, to deal with the change.

At this point I felt pretty confident that I could handle the situation, since I was travelling with a little 12-volt powered air pump as well as two cans of Fix-A-Flat. I decided to fully inflate the tire with the electric pump and then add the Fix-A-Flat only if I found a noticeable leak. I broke out the little pump and started to fit the hose end over the valve stem of the tire. The valve stem bent under the pressure, revealing a ragged tear halfway up the shaft which allowed a continuous stream of air to escape the tire, flattening it completely. "Rotten!" I cursed to myself. I had been completely fixated on the rust issue and had neglected to take a really close look at the tires. The valve stem on at least this tire must have been rotten and brittle for quite a while and was just waiting for a chance to give out.

Plan A having gone out the window, I resigned myself to plan B, which was changing the tire on site, despite the traffic. I broke out my tools and got to work. The first order of business was to break the lug nuts on the tire loose. Then I would jack up the Jeep and throw the spare tire on as quickly as possible. I briefly thought that I should check the valve stem on that tire to see if it was in any better shape, but a moment's consideration made me think better of it. If it was rotten, there was nothing I could do to fix it here...best to touch it as little as possible and hope it held long enough to get somewhere that could repair it if it was bad. I found the right size fitting on my 4-in-1 lug wrench, put it over the closest nut, and proceeded to move my day from bad to worse.

I quickly found that four of the five nuts couldn't have been more securely fastened if they had been welded to the bolts. After ten minutes of exertion, one rusty nut finally creaked free, but the rest were completely immobile. Employing the last redoubt of the mechanically challenged, I finally resorted to jumping up and down on the lug wrench in a vain attempt to break another nut free, but I only succeeded in bending the wrench and providing an entertaining spectacle for a pair of teenage girls walking by. I sat down in the grass at the side of the road and contemplated exactly which black belt level of screwed I was currently experiencing. I was over 200 miles from home, in the heart of one of the most crime-riddled cities in America, with a broken-down vehicle that I couldn't repair.

I'm the type of person who prides himself on being able to solve his own problems, but it was clearly time to call for help. I had signed up for the Boat US trailer club with exactly this kind of emergency in mind but I had no idea what I could expect from them. After all, for an extra $18 in addition to the normal Boat US membership fee, I didn't expect a whole lot out of the service. More in desperation than confidence, I dug the membership card out of my wallet and called the 800 number on my cell phone.

After a few rings, the call was answered by a person, which was my first of several pleasant surprises of the day. I briefly explained my situation to the woman on the phone and gave her my location, using the GPS in the Jeep to verify what exit number I was at. She said that she would check into what help they had available in the area and would give me a call back. I hung up wondering if I was going to hear back that they didn't have any resources here and that I was on my own or, worse still, never get a return call at all.

Within ten minutes, however, I received a call back from the same woman telling me that they had a service agreement with a local company in Detroit, but that they were very busy at the moment and couldn't get a truck out to me for about 90 minutes. She asked if that was okay or if I would like her to try to find someone else who could get to me sooner. The prospect of waiting only an hour and a half to have someone rescue me from this mess was more than I had dared hope for when I called, so I told her that the wait would not be a problem. Still somewhat fearful of being rear-ended, I decided to wait for help in the grass as far away from the boat as I could get. I hit the play button on my MP3 player and sat down under the early September sun to enjoy a book on tape.

Sure enough, after barely an hour, a black Belle Tire work truck pulled up behind me and a dirt-covered fellow with a beard climbed out. His name was Brian and he was in the middle of his work day, which mostly consisted of replacing tires on semi-tractor trailer trucks stranded on the side of the road. In fact, he told me, this was the first boat trailer he had ever been called out to work on. I felt like I was in good hands as he pulled out an assortment of pneumatic tools from the back of his truck and got to work. Sure enough, the professional tools made the difference and the rusted lugs came off the tire with a minimum of effort.

I gave Brian the spare tire but he insisted on checking it out before he put it on. Part of my routine with Rusty the Jeep was to put air in the spare tire before each trip, as it had a tendency to leak a few pounds of pressure a day. I wasn't terribly concerned about this, since I was pretty confident that the tire would stay inflated long enough to get me home if I needed it, but I never expected that the tire would be subject to inspection by a professional. I began to worry that Brian would refuse to install a leaking tire on the Jeep and insist on towing me somewhere for a professional (and expensive) repair. He laid the tire flat on the ground and poured soapy water from a jug over it. Sure enough, within seconds a wall of bubbles floated to the surface all along the bead where the tire joined the rim.

"Well, that's not good," Brian declared unnecessarily. I explained that the tire tended to leak but that it wasn't severe and I was sure I could get home with it. Brian agreed that it would probably be safe, but pointed to the tire he had just removed and said "Let's just fix that one instead."

Then, to my utter amazement, he dragged a couple of crowbar-sized tools out of his truck and proceeded to pry the tire off the rim. I had seen tires replaced a dozen times in various garages with the use of industrial-looking hydraulic devices bolted to the floor, but I never knew that you could do the same thing on the side of the road with nothing but a couple of hand tools. Brian knew his business and had the tire worked free from the rim within minutes. He replaced the old rotten stem with a shiny new titanium truck-grade part, and reassembled the tire.

Within a few more minutes, the repaired tire was full of air and back in place. Brian recommended getting the jeep to a tire shop for a thorough inspection, since a rotten valve stem was often the first sign of more serious problems, and he couldn't vouch for the condition of any of the other tires. But I was at least road-worthy for the time being and my total time stranded in Detroit turned out to be just under two hours. There was no charge for the repair and Brian even refused to allow me to tip him for the great job he had done. I later found out that Boat US had paid over $250 for the service call, which is what I would have been charged if I was not a club member. I resolved then and there to never be without the Boat US trailer club ever again.

I decided to head back home rather than continue my trip and Wanderlust and her trailer followed docilely behind as I got back on the freeway. I had been playing long odds with Rusty for several months and they had finally caught up with me. The next thing to go on the Jeep might not be so easy to fix and I couldn't count on being lucky enough to have a dedicated professional like Brian to save me. The Anchor Bay cruising guide would have to wait until I had a reliable tow vehicle to get there in. Sadly, Rusty the Jeep and I were making our final trip together.