Plugging a tire

Why would you take a chance?

Can you not afford a new tire?

I paid $175 for this tire, and I barely have 5000km on it. It would be a shame to throw it out.

Go ahead then. Get it plugged. Drive fast and hard on it.

It beats the crap out of me why anyone would ask a question like this.

Don't you *want* to be confident that your tires are going to maintain their integrity while you're speeding along and maybe hitting the inevitable little pothole or two?

Sheesh. Get over it. Buy a new tire.

LOL! What a jerk!

Venture Rider wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

It seems to me that if the puncture is within the TREAD(3/4" in from edge of tread seems OK to me) that the tire is patchable.

Find another shop.

I'm no expert on this, but I also suspect that 3/4 inch into the tread is patchable. A second opinion makes sense. If they agree, then it's time to bite the bullet.

Mike

Thanks for the advice. My regular shop should be opened today. I will go see them.

That should be repairable. If the sidewall is damaged, they usually don't try to fix them, but punctures in the tread are usually OK to repair. How much tread does it have remaining?

This is silly. There is no risk to patching a tire with a screw in the tread area. Especially one this new. It's dangerous if the puncture is in the sidewall, but not an inch into the tread. You must be made of money.

I just came back from the Goodyear distributor where I bought my tires. They put a plug in it. They said a little more to the outside and it was a new tire. You have to be careful who you do business with, I guess.

I barely have 5000km on that tire. It probably still has 75-80% thread.

Venture Rider wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Well,tire stores are primarily in business to -sell- new tires. Patching tires is a sideline for them.

As in any business,Good stores will help you with repairs as much as possible,and in YOUR best interests,in order to bring them new business when you really need new tires,and also for recommendations to others.

Goodyear fixed my tire for $10.

Tire manufactures stopped offering the warranty in January 2005. So unless the dealer is offering it, you SOOL.

And I assume you have had no problems with the plugged tires?

It so happens my Goodyear dealer is offering it as well. His own initiative.

In both cases it was a roofing nail picked up in the main body of the tread. Nothing in or near the sidewall. Discount Tire also doesn't use the conventional "plug" method. Rather their procedure is a complete dismount/breakdown and proper internal patch followed by remounting and rebalancing.

I did destroy a sidewall about 25 years ago on a Corvette. It was an OEM tire and so not covered by any warranty. Therafter I've always opted for the Road Hazard protection when buying new tires. A crap-shoot, sure and you're unlikely to ever need it, like an extended warranty except comparatively much cheaper and a small price to pay for the extra protection and peace of mind.

Don't misunderstand. I do not believe in extended warranties on my cars. Without exception they're all a bad investment, very expensive, most have a per-incident deductible, most are rife with weasel clauses and your chances of just breaking even with the policy's high up-front cost is historically slim. There is also a huge profit margin in them for the selling dealer, typically 50%.

You should never plug a tire. The repair is to boot or patch from the inside. If the hole is close to the sidewall and not on the tread, you should write it off as the repair will be unreliable.

Before we became loyal Discount Tire customers we went to Cobre Tire in Phoenix. They patched and repatched a tire we had maybe four times before they got the patch to stay on. Hmm. Discount Tire never had that problem with any of the punctures we took there.

In the last year or so the local Discount Tire has plugged the holes, and I can do that. I've plugged maybe a half dozen holes over the years, mostly in the boondocks or early in the morning when I wanted to get to work, and never had a problem.

Mike