Thread: 30km from Arkaroola - warnings/ lights/mild heart infarct

Skipping along a graded gravel road last Tuesday into Arkaroola after a three hour off-road drive towing a camper trailer. Family looking forward to the first shower in three days, when 30km out the chime announces that the computers are not happy.

Console reads "suspension fault special programs off". A strange new symbol appears on the dash. A red disco icon wearing what appears to be ear muffs. Could this be that I don't want to hear what it has got to tell me?
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Stop the train in the parched and barren landscape. The leathery sack of a long dead roo carcass just nearby. Turn it off, Get out - check the front and rear wheels, and have a mild panic attack. The car is down on bump stops. Oh no. The compressors is dead, I'm thinking. Visions of waiting weeks in this godforsaken place for a new compressor to be flown from the UK via Concorde. Or a flat bed truck all the way back to Ritter. I'll be rooned!.

Have a slug of water from the bottle- they say when you're dying of thirst that it's better to have the water in you, than looking at you in a bottle - then take a slow walk round the car to the passenger side.

Oh... It's a flat. Rear passenger side.

Back into the car. See if the old turn it off and on will reset the faults. No such luck. Do I have a flat AND an air compressor failure? Nothing to do but change the wheel.

However, the whole car is barely 6 inches off the ground. No room for a jack. Weighed down further by the heavy trailer. And the trailer too low to lower the jockey wheel.

Fortunately, I could get a jack under the draw bar of the trailer. So that was the first thing solved.

Still the car was too low to get a jack under the chassis. So I had to put the jack under the tow bar to raise the car a bit.

And here is where some of my previous preparation came in mighty handy. You see I carry two jacks. A 4 tonne and a 2 tonne bottle jack. The 2 tonne jack went under the tow bar to lift the car enough to get the 4 tonne jack under the chassis. Then move the 2 and work the chassis up to height using the two jacks and their screw extensions, and then finally place the 2 under the rear cross arms to get the spare on.

With the new tyre on, the car cleared its faults and the suspension rose to normal height (phew)

It was a bugger of a job. All the stuff had to come out of the car to get the spare, fortunately I was lent a hand by a passing couple holidaying from Tassie (thanks Phil).

I'll say more about the flat and the tyre itself in another post, but let me say, If I had only one bottle jack with me, or the crappy OEM jack, I don't think I could have changed the tyre. The clearance was just not there. So have a think if maybe you might want to consider a second jack too.

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

just drive the flat tyre up onto the spare and then slip the jack under the chassis. Old trick.

Never tried it. I would be cautious trying it on alloys. Anyone tried it?