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Tire damage - what should I do

H

Heywood

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Jan 24, 2006
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Location
Montreal
So I just went out for lunch and noticed this little beauty in the sidewall of my new tire.

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It looks like it stayed pretty close to the surface (side) and I am not leaking air (although I haven't pulled it out yet). I was thinking to maybe inject some glue or something into the holes. I was planning to take the car to an open track event next month which makes me a little concerned. I certainly wouldn't consider having a tire shop put a plug in it.
Thoughts? suggestions?

thanks.
 
I work at a tire shop, and while I wouldn't recommend it, you could buy a plug kit off the shelf and plug it yourself. It takes about 2 minutes. What I would NOT do is cut it and fill it with rubber cement because the rubber cement will degrade extremely fast with weather, especially with road salting coming up in some parts of the country.

Work with the place that you bought the tire from, often times they can get the manufacturer to "buy back" the tire and pro rate it for a new tire.
 
I bought the tires from tire rack without their road package or whatever it is so I doubt they'll be much help, worth a try though.
I'm hoping that the nails are just in the wall and didn't go right through. Either way, it sounds like this tire is definitely not gonna be track worthy after this.
 
Well, tire is leaking so the inner nail must have gone through. I will plug it myself for now and order a new tire to replace it soon. Bummer, this rubber wasn't cheap.
 
While I understand why tire shops won't mess with it, I have successfully plugged a clean hole in sidewall before. It went full life till changed. Just don't ever let that one get low on air, the sidewall flexing from low air will quickly fail the plug. I shoved up my self plugging success rate from 50-60% to like 95% by buying rubber cement in can and liberally applying to plug just before use. The plugs have it already done, but time lets the VOC cook out of those while hanging on the pegboard hook. Learned all this from back alley behind house, had 40 flats in just 1 year. By now cannot count, I just keep plugging them, got damned tired of waiting all day for repair. Can fix tire in like 2 minutes, sometimes don't even remove it from car.
 
You really did the right thing. You may be able to get away with a questionable plug for a mildly driven street machine, but you bought a high performance tire and intend to be able to use it in that manner. Tire failure from a questionable plug is one less thing to worry about when you drive in a spirited manner.
 
True indeed. Putting sidewall stresses from hard cornering on there will not help that plug, Narrow profile would be harder on it as well. My use was on everyday grocery getter, wide sidewall, no hard cornering. Totally different performance envelope. But it CAN be done. Maybe use the tire as spare?
 
since you've already know it leaks and are going the route of trying to fix it so you can get more use out of the tire, why no get it patched. It is much less destructive to the sidewall structure. The nail looks like it is a very small diameter nail, the type used to secure coax cable wiring to the wall. If you plug it, you will need to ream the hole clean which means you are physically destroying the sidewall more so you will have a larger area of un reinforced material before the plug goes in. If have a shop patch it, you are not weakening the sidewall more than the damage made by the small nail.
 
you missed one important point .... no shop is going to make any tire repair with damage where it is located in this case.
 
amc49 said:
While I understand why tire shops won't mess with it, I have successfully plugged a clean hole in sidewall before. It went full life till changed. Just don't ever let that one get low on air, the sidewall flexing from low air will quickly fail the plug. I shoved up my self plugging success rate from 50-60% to like 95% by buying rubber cement in can and liberally applying to plug just before use. The plugs have it already done, but time lets the VOC cook out of those while hanging on the pegboard hook. Learned all this from back alley behind house, had 40 flats in just 1 year. By now cannot count, I just keep plugging them, got damned tired of waiting all day for repair. Can fix tire in like 2 minutes, sometimes don't even remove it from car.
Click to expand...

I would have cleaned the alley:shrug:
 
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