As a general rule, when I write an article I try to make sure it’s informative — that it teaches the average reader something new about cars, even if it’s just something small. But there are times when I just have something weird I want to show you, so that together we can just gawk, possibly drool a little, and then move on with our days. That’s what we have here. I have basically no context to provide; all I know is that a Texan named Jeremy Price posted this vide to Facebook with just the simple caption: “The shit you see in Houston. Lmao. This was on my way back from my daughters Banquet tonight.”
Click on Jeremy’s profile to watch that video, or you can just check out the embedded clip below from boring.cars, who re-posted the video:
A post shared by Boring Cars (@boring.cars) I really have absolutely no clue what the heck is going on. The Jeep Gladiator is hauling down a highway, with both driver’s-side tires missing, and the wheels sparking against the ground. The front left wheel appears to have disintegrated, the fender flare is missing, the corner of the front bumper has clearly been torn off, and the mirror looks broken.
The tags appear to be temporary ones, so I’m going to assume that this is a fairly new Gladiator. Why the person behind the wheel thinks it makes sense to just pilot the car for several hundred feet (at least) on the highway before pulling into an HEB grocery store is beyond me.
I bet the Gladiator could be fixed fairly easily. Replace those wheels, snag a new front bumper, get a new fender flare (those pop off easily for off-road use), probably get a hold of a new wheel liner, and then just have a look at any other steering/suspension bits that look compromised (I bet they’re fine). Still, I have very little understanding how anyone could think driving a car in this condition is somehow the right move over, say, towing it. That’s the missing answer that I’d like for this article: Why? Seriously, there’s got to have been some thought-process that went into this person choosing to — instead of get the vehicle towed — hold desperately to that steering wheel while listening to the Jeep as it grinds against the high-speed highway. I see that there’s a Chevy truck in front with its hazard lights on; is that a friend helping the Gladiator driver limp their vehicle off the road? But if the Gladiator driver had time to call a friend, surely they had time to think that, just maybe, driving a vehicle in this state on a public highway is completely idiotic. Again, sorry about the lack of informative content. This one has me thrown for a loop. Disgruntled employee? Angry spouse? DUI? Insurance fraud gone bad? Owning the libs? Because it’s fun to do bad things? Whatever, it’s gotta be a Jeep thing. We won’t understand. I think it’s more than just a flat tire that got out of hand. After the initial lurch towards the ground and the car trying to rotate left I somehow got control and managed to drive on the rotor long enough to slow down and get off the road. It wore to the hub, had to replace the whole assembly. Being a Neon I was surprised it didn’t crack the subframe or something. It did die of transmission failure within a few months so maybe something did get knocked loose. The guy coming up behind me pulled over to see if I was OK and weirdly took the opportunity to tell me how impressed he was with my driving since he was sure I was a goner. I guess I had decent reflexes but that was not a day to feel pride in my accomplishments. If you’ve ever tried to get a low car that’s missing a wheel up on a two-wheel car trailer and only had a scissor jack to help you’ll understand. The process involves getting the ramps situated, jacking up the damaged wheel until the other one can roll, putting rocks or whatever’s handy under the car to catch it and not break the ramp, chocking the back wheels and then trying to push it up the ramp while the guy in the truck carefully backs towards you. Replacing the hub, brakes and control arm were easy, getting the car on the trailer was the real punishment for my neglected maintenance. Still all better than being dead. In all seriousness, he’s probably drunk and is fleeing an accident. It’s the Houston thing to do. /s Whatever dude. Some people are just idiots. At least my neighbor recognized it was a problem, and was driving slowly/carefully, but he couldn’t take the final step to realize that maybe even that wasn’t a good idea for a two mile drive. His truck was back this morning, with the same tire on it–now the sidewall looked beat to hell–so I assume they plugged it. He finally got the guy to pull over and he refused to do anything about it “I only live a few more miles ahead”.
