I bet I know more about tyres than you do.

In particular, tyres that go pfft on hire cars and vans.

Unless you/your band possess your own transport you'll one day, be looking to hire some. There are many, many potholes along this particular road of life, but, from personal and gripping experience, I will now elucidate just four of them. The rubber ones.

As standard, money conscious practice, I spent an hour on the phone searching for the cheapest hire quote for a nine day tour, and found Discount Self Drive Hire in Tottenham doing a fine bargain at £63, all in, unlimited mileage. Other companies were estimating between £100 and £150 for the same jam jar. After getting the car home to pick up the gear, we noticed one tyre significantly soft, so we dropped into the local garage before the trip and pumped it up. Some miles later, we arrived, unloaded and later settled for the night. The next morning the tyre was totally flat. An original slow puncture had matured disastrously. Right, where's the spare?

There isn't one.

A frantic phone call for help to Discount Self Drive back in London. "No we don't include spare tyres in cars." WHAT! Why not? "People steal them... but there is a puncture repair kit." There wasn't. Never mind, the gladiators of the road, those gallant AA men would come to our aid, since, thankfully the hire car was AA covered. Fifteen minutes after our call, the yellow van bounces towards us and the AA man climbs out. "Nothing I can do about that." WHAT? Why not. "We can't repair tyres. If you haven't got a spare well... we can take you into town to get it fixed." From the nearest tyre centre, a brand new circle of rubber costs us £30. And four days later the entire process is repeated as the other back tyre goes soft on us. Bill now £60.

An interesting snippet we glean this time is that the AA RELAY Service, which will haul you to your destination in the event of an irreparable breakdown, has a waiver regarding tyres. If you get a flat, and don't have a serviceable spare, the AA are under no obligation to take you any further. They'll help you fix the tyre — the next morning when the garage opens — but they won't relay you. Even weirder, it is not ILLEGAL to drive a car without a spare tyre. It is ILLEGAL to drive a car with a substandard (ie bald or useless) spare tyre.

Eventually back at Discount Self Drive Hire in Tottenham we explain our plight. Manager John Kennedy points to the bit in the contract that says hirer responsible for first £150 of damage. "You should have driven more carefully". But at least one of these tyres had a slow puncture when we picked it up, we say "No it didn't." He argues that we could have had the tyres repaired instead of replaced. But the tyre centre we were taken to by the AA insisted our types of tyres couldn't be plugged or patched. Who do you believe? We say goodbye to £60, Discount say hello to two new tyres.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Aldous Huxley

So what do we learn from this? Well all hire companies will expect you to return the car/van in the condition you took it. If you get a puncture on the road, you'll have to pay up. That's Fair. It's just bad luck. But, if you don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for the AA man (a) check that the hire company SUPPLIES A SPARE; (b) verify it's in place, serviceable and has a jack BEFORE leaving their premises.

As an official AA spokesman told One Two, "your readers are the sort of people who will be looking for the cheapest hire deal they can find... it's often a false economy."