Why don't they make a garden hose puncture repair kit?

Here is my lousy rube goldberg where I've tried all the Home Depot brass and Harbor Freight plastic male:female hose connectors in the past.

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I searched and found puncture repair tape but there's no way it will ever work when you look at the kind of pressure that is going on in that hose.

What I searched for is some kind of thick cladding that can be hose clamped over the wound, best in two long halves - but I couldn't find that anywhere.

The best I could come up with was that jerry rigged tube of plastic toothepaste cladding with a rubber bicycle tire tube underneath.

It has been working for an hour before it got dark but it looks like Arnold Swartzenegger's arm, as it's bulging out on both sides of the middle hose clamp like it wants to burst (and probably will).

Why can't they make a six inch long tube cut in half lengthwise that is semi-elastic but firm with strong cladding that clamps over the hole without having to cut the rubber garden hose in half at the wear point?

The main reason for taking off the tire is a visual inspection of the carcass and once the tire is off, you may as well patch it from inside.

Normally what I do is remove the tire at home, inspect the inside and plug it from the outside and then cut the plug flush & patch from the inside.

Then I remount the tire & static balance it & take it for a road test.

I've plugged many tires as has everyone on this newsgroup plugged them. I've never had a plugged tire fail on me in use. Have you?

That doesn't mean though that the carcass wasn't damaged internally. But in a true emergency I'd plug a tire in a heartbeat to get going.

The harder problem is putting the air back into that plugged tire.

I think eventually most plugs would leak if they're not reamed out well. That's because the squirming of the steel bands would push it out. But that seems to take years at the kind of normal driving most of us do.

There is only one right way but there are a lot of wrong ways to do it.

Two $35 plugs is the cost of an entire economy car brand new tire.

What I do when I dunk a tire to check is throw it in the kiddie pool. Or if it's on the car (or super dirty) I just spray it with dish soap.

There's a problem there in that a proper repair has to have the tire removed to inspect the inside of the carcass so a rebalance is normally done although at home you could just mark the position ahead of time.

Balancing is one of those things that everyone has an opinion on. I have the Harbor Freight aluminum static balancer which works fine.

The only problem is Harbor Freight only sells stickon weights. I like the crimpon type. So I have to buy huge boxes off of Amazon.

I've watched the Hunter tech many times. They're usually very lazy. They never do it right.

They know how to match mount but they're too lazy to do it right. They know how to mount by the yellow/read/white marks too.

But all they care about it getting the next customer out the door. That's how they're paid.

You can do the whole thing at home for an outlay of about $250 depending on whether you already have the tools that you need. I do it all the time.

air compressor, chucks, hoses, stem removal tool, tire irons, soap, etc.
bead breaker tool
tire mounting/dismounting tool <== don't use their lousy bead breaker
static balancer

Harbor Freight sells everything except the dish soap. Anyone claiming you always need road-force balancing is making that up.

The after-the-fact dynamic balance test is free in all cases.