Maybe it works ouT…
Granddaughter’s friend comes over to swim. Fine.. 16 yr old. Drives off a bit too fast and misses the jog in the road a 1/4 mile from my house, I heard the impact and thought, i hope it wasn’t her… it was. Blew out two tires, then she drove back to my house. Both tires are scrap, wheels look to be OK. Tell her call dad or a flatbed. Dad is not in the equation, cheated, abandoned the kids and divorced, bad blood. Ok, call mom… Mom tells her TOUGH SHIT!!! your problem! Walk home for all I care! Mom of the year nominee? Hell of it is, it’s mom’s car!!!

She finally gets a relative to agree to take her a town over and pick up two tires and bring them to me to put on. Ummm no… I will take off the wheels and you come get them, have new ones mounted / balanced and I will replace them on the car, I’m not mounting them on the rims. OK. Then I remind her they must match, all wheel drive car. All assuming someone steps up to PAY for the new tires!

I put the car on my lift to remove the two. Well shit, guess what, two piece lug nuts. And they are on super seriously overtightened. First time EVER that my 1/2 impact would not remove a lug nut. Could not budge with a full size 4 way either. So Breaker bar… loooong pipe… only one shredded the outer shell, chiseled/ripped it off and drove a metric socket on, it worked! Surprised and thankful. Whew! Could been worse!

Now, next afternoon, here I sit waiting for them to pickup the 2 busted ones with her car setting on my lift, for who knows how long… With me in the middle of a dis-functional family…. This went south quick!

Kind of feel sorry for the girl with shit for parents, and I pulled my share of dumb antics and needed help at her age but…

Half a notion to throw the old ones back on and put the car in the yard and say there you go.

Could be a-lot worse, and she got a lecture about how she could have torn up the car or killed someone.

How the kid reacted would have had a lot to do with how I would react.

Was she sorry? Thankful? Entitled?

24 hours later and no effort to get their POS off my lift? I'd put on whatever might make it roll, push it out to the road and call the cops about the abandoned car in front of my house. Let it be their problem, not mine.

Well, throughout it all you're the good dad, the one stepping in to help a young girl who has clearly little support at home.

Hopefully they'll get the tires to you and it will be fixed soon.

You sound like a good role model to me. Hopefully the grand-daughter’s friend sees that and doesn’t repeat the mistakes being made in her upbringing.

Well, they turned 180° today.

Grandpa come by and grab the wheels and tires… came back this afternoon with two new ones mounted and balanced and also a whole set of new one piece lug nuts, as I had recommended. He said I can take care of this if you don’t mind. I said go right ahead. I did help him a little and operate the lift.

Grandpa was actually cool, dude just two years younger than me. He said he thought daughter and mom come to terms, but the daughter still a little confused. She didn’t think she should be responsible for the damages because it wasn’t her car, still some lacking there. Anyway, they got it and gone, and I can feel good about the way I handled it. Grandpa offered to pay me for my trouble of course I refused.

I wish them luck, I torqued the lug nuts to spec told him he should do that again especially with the alloy wheels, in 20 or 30 miles, whether he does or not is on him.

A good deed, sir.

Good work!