Winter this year took a while to get going, partly because we seemed to skip autumn and went from summery temperatures in November straight into cold – but not as cold as usual – ones in December. As a result, I didn’t put the snow tyres on our Isis (the official automobile of the Islamic State! Not surprisingly, Toyota doesn’t make this model any more) until the beginning of January. In the end, though, it snowed about four times (not to the point of settling or full-blown snowball fights, it has to be said), the nighttime temperature dipped to -7°C at one point, and I got the usual chilblains on my fingertips from typing in a cold house.
Bearing in mind global boiling and all-round climate hell, it may not be too much longer before folks in Ibaraki don’t need to do this kind of thing every winter “just in case,” but we were caught out a few years ago when there was snow forecast for the morning of M Jr. I and II’s nursery school show (I managed to find some snow chains the right size for our previous car in a Yellow Hat car shop at about 8 p.m. the night before), and while I’m lounging around at home, Mrs M now commutes to work as an assistant special needs teacher every weekday, so weather-proof transport is essential.
In Japanese, snow tyres are called “studless” (スタッドレス), which as far as I can tell means they’re snow tyres, but not the kind that actually have metal studs or spikes on them for super extra non-slip grip. Ours cost about 60,000 yen, and a place like Yellow Hat will change them for you at the bargain price of a couple of thousand, but given the fact my father-in-law was still doing the job himself when he was in his late seventies, ideally, I wanted to learn how to do the same. Mrs M’s brother gave me a tutorial, and about four years later, I can now do the whole thing in less than an hour.
This is mainly due to the very modest looking jack in this picture, which truly is a miracle of modern engineering: a metal gizmo no more than 30 cm long and weighing about a kilo, it can lift one corner of a 1.8 ton car clear of the ground with no more arm power than a relative weakling like me can muster (M Jr. II isn’t interested in helping me any more, but a year or two ago, he very nearly managed the job as a nine year old).
There was a story in the news not long ago about a wheel coming free from a jeep as it drove along, before rolling onto the pavement and hitting an innocent bystander, so you really do need to make sure that your nuts, as it were, are tight, and as usual, when I was doing my final checks this year, I realised they were protruding from one wheel slightly too far, even though the wheel in question was flush with the kind of thick, round metal plate to which it is supposed to be attached. I’m not sure quite why this happens, but it might be that the thread on one or more of the nuts isn’t properly lined up with that of the corresponding bolt, so I jacked that corner of the car up again, undid them all, started from scratch, and got it right.
You don’t have to tighten the wheel nuts as much as you might think – just apply a reasonable amount of clockwise force to the wrench with your bare hands – although you are supposed to double-check their tightness when the car has subsequently been driven for 100 km or so, which I’m ashamed to say I always forget to do.
Depending on how and where they’re stored, some snow tyres are only supposed to be used for about three years (I think because the rubber starts to disintegrate), but frankly, ours look like they’ll be fine for their fifth run-out next winter, and until then will be stored in our bike tent in the back garden (a prize, incidentally, for anyone who can guess where the flag is from. A hint: it’s a souvenir from where Mrs M and I spent our honeymoon).
