As mentioned on Richards blog, way back on Wednesday 3rd I got a puncture on the left rear tyre of the Ion - second time for that wheel since I've had the car.
The worst thing was, unlike most punctures this one was completely avoidable and my fault.
I park behind a fold down bollard near work, this evil thing:
As soon as I got out to fold the bollard back up I could hear the tyre hissing like an angry snake.Come to think of it, the puncture I had a year ago was also the left rear wheel on the inner sidewall and also on the way home from work about 5 minutes up the road, so was very likely caused by the same thing. Whoops!
No spare tyre in this car and I'd used up the tyre repair goo kit last year and not replaced it, mainly because it seems pretty ineffective, so another call to the AA... An hour and a half later they arrived!
Next surprise is that my AA account apparently doesn't include recovery of the car back to the house (17 miles) despite the AA guy doing it last year using their universal spare. Only recovery to the nearest authorised garage or tyre shop is covered, although the guy did admit that they do have discretion to go up to 10 miles but not 17.At that time of night nobody nearby was open, so a complicated plan was hatched of me with the AA's spare wheel being followed to a nearby national tyres, leaving my car in their car park overnight, getting dropped off at the nearby train station, from there I'd have to get a train home, then a taxi (or walk 30 mins) then get the Xantia, drive all the way back into Glasgow, transfer my baby seat from the other car, then back to his grans to pick him up at 9pm if I was lucky then drive home. Then the following day I'd have to go for a drive during the day to drop off the car keys at the tyre fitter. What a nightmare!
Part way through discussing these plans the AA man said I was making him feel guilty especially as I had a 2 year old to pick up so decided he would follow me home the 17 miles with his spare on the car after all!
Phew. 
He recommended I upgrade my plan to include "Relay" which is apparently what I actually need as that allows for the car and passengers to be recovered anywhere in the UK. For the majority of problems I'm likely to run into and especially a puncture, if I'm within a 20 mile radius of home I'd rather just get my car home and deal with it later while I drive the other car. Funnily enough I got a letter in the mail from the AA a few days later telling me that "Relay" was discounted if I upgraded to it before December... coincidence ? I think not! 
So the Xantia was pressed into service for the daily commute. The next snag was that my preferred garage in Motherwell say they can't order Vredestein, so back to Cooper Brothers, who I hadn't entirely been happy with last time on the wheel balancing front (three attempts to get it near enough) who then told me that there was no stock of the Quatrac 5 in 175/55/15 in the UK at the moment so that they would have to back order one from the factory in Holland. Doh.
It ended up arriving on Thursday the 11th in time to be fitted last Saturday. So I was driving the Xantia to work for about 7 days in which time the petrol cost more than the new tyre.
I did enjoy driving the Xantia though, it was flawless and boy is it good to have a spare car in case something goes wrong with one as the commute to work including dropping off Joshua and picking him up is almost impossible to do by public transport - we would have been in deep doo doos without the second car... 
I was a bit annoyed at having to replace only one tyre after a year, and worried that the imbalance in tread depth/tyre diameter might be a problem as when I had new tyres on the rear and old ones on the front last year it was causing false triggering of the traction control due to rolling radius mismatches, but it looks like I'll be OK as there are no signs of the traction control misbehaving, and the handling of the car feels normal.
The old tyres have done about 14k miles so far - I measured the tread depth of the remaining old rear tyre and the new tyre and they aren't as different as I thought they would be - the new one is 7.6 mm on the tread wear line near the shoulder, while the old one is 5.3mm. So they have worn 2.3mm in about 14k miles. Does that seem reasonable ? It seems like they should do 25-30k miles at that rate and still have 3mm left. I guess when the other three tyres are due to be replaced I'll probably just fit four to get them back into tread depth balance again, but for now I can get away with replacing only one as the others aren't too worn yet.
The front tyres only have 4.7mm tread depth but they are a smaller 145/65/15 tyre so probably had less tread depth to begin with, and they don't do a lot of work with it being a RWD car. So all back on the road again since Saturday.
Because I had problems with the balancing last time, I got the tyre done first thing on Saturday then came home to fit the wheel and take it for a test drive at motorway speed to check the balancing - despite it bucketing down with the heaviest rain we've had in quite a while during both the wheel fitting and test drive.
All good on the balance front in fact it feels better balanced than before. As much as I enjoyed driving the Xantia I also missed driving the Ion so I'm glad to be back in it again for the daily commute. 
