How Dummies Change Tires on Snapper Mowers - The Freelance Files MMCLXXXVIII

Where's the spare, Ken?

This one's an oldie but a goodie (well, actually a "baddie"); first published more than a decade ago. In today's nominee, we learn – once again – that some freelancers would say anything to collect a few bucks from the people at Demand Media Studios¹ (DMS, as in, "You can't spell 'dumbass' without 'DMS.'"). One of them, today's award-winner, is a guy we've seen before: Kenneth Crawford; who way back in 2010 attempted to fool people, beyond the content editors, into believing that he knew "How to Change a Tire on a Snapper Lawn Mower" at GardenGuides.com. For the record, folks, Ken didn't know...

Something we found weird about Kenneth's post is that the previous year (2009) he had already botched a run at a similar assignment², How to Fix a Flat Tire on Your Riding Lawn Mower." In that post, Ken suggested using a tire plug while the tire (and wheel!) were still mounted on the mower. Crawford's problem in that post was that he didn't know how to get the tire bead seated on the rim, so he just ignored the problem. This time out, Kenny skipped over the question of mounting a replacement tire entirely, although he did kindly inform his readers that "Replacement tires are available through authorized Snapper dealers."

Ken's instructions for this task totaled over 600 words, of which almost 500 described removing a wheel from its axle, with great attention given to the square key on the drive axles. Crawford's steps for changing the tire, however? His instructions follow, in their entirety:

"Place the new tire on the axle over the sleeve."

We're pretty certain that either Crawford was completely ignorant of the difference between tires and wheels, or he was bullshitting the content editor. Given that this is his eighth nomination for one of our awards, we're pretty sure that he was ignorant of the difference; a conviction bolstered by his admonition (in step one) to,

"Block one of the tires on the opposite end from the faulty tire with two pieces of wood--one piece in front of the tire and one piece behind the tire."

If that doesn't scream ignorance of wheel vs. tire, we don't know what would. Need we say more?

Crawford spent almost the entirety of his post blathering about removing a wheel while pretending (much like John Rose did a few years later) that riding mowers are shipped with "spare tires." Regardless of what our Dumbass of the Day and similar thinkers might say, they don't. Unless the rim is damaged beyond repair, you simply need to put a new or repaired tire on the same rim and re-install it. Crawford's thrust, then, should have been on changing the tire (his assignment) instead of changing the wheel. Feh.

¹ Now known as Leaf Group, but still infamous for unreliable content.
² Which eHow.com "contributors" were wont to call "titles."

SE - TIRES