savannals

Before I bought her, Agent May sat for a while at the dealership I bought her from. Which means that her tires, while new in terms of miles driven, also had experienced some unusual stresses related to lack of use.

A few weeks ago, one of the tire pressure sensors was telling me that the pressure was low in that tire. It hadn't been that long since the last time air was added to the tires. That, combined with the fact that another one of the tires assumed a somewhat odd shape when parked in certain positions, was enough for me to just decide to replace the tires. The old ones were... probably fine, but I knew I wanted to replace them eventually anyway with ones that were a bit more capable on less-than-paved roads. (I have no plans to take her off-road, but definitely want to be able to drive on not-well-maintained roads.) And it was worth it to me to do that sooner and avoid worrying about the integrity of the tires.

I also (for purely aesthetic reasons) got her some new wheels to go with her new tires. Naturally—The Cavalry needs shoes that are both on point and practical. She's looking awesomely badass!

I also got some splash guards/mud flaps, to try to redirect rocks or mud that get kicked up away from the van. The installation process was quite simple and also fairly infuriating, partially because it involved blindly putting clips in behind the fender (which then kept falling into the wrong place and then being really hard to retrieve), and partially because the screws are waxed:

The wax is there to protect the screw hole against water and other various gross stuff in the wheel well, so I'm glad it's there. But dang, it also made those things hard to screw in. But, I got there eventually!

Here's the van with the new tires, new wheels and new mud flaps!

She's changed a lot since we brought her home! Quite the makeover: