Your theory is taking on unnecessary risk/possible liability. I don’t know of any shop that would patch a sidewall. If your sidewall has a hole in it, you replace the tire.
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I have to wonder about both your age and the types of roads on which you have driven over the years.
I am now 74, and I have had no more than… maybe… 9 tire punctures over the years.
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No tire shop I know would take that liability. Any leak on side-wall = NEW TIRE.
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I never said they were all mine. Ive plugged friends, family, neighbors, mail carrier,coworkers ect…
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I’ve probably had 20 or 30. NH and MA has been in a constant state of construction since I’ve moved here back in the early 80’s. I live on a dirt road, but that’s never cause a tire puncture. It’s driving through/near construction sites. Driving into Boston this past summer and my son and I counted at least 20 cranes over the city skyline. Homes are being built everywhere. Only slow down was during the great recession and the first year of Covid.
Within the last year, I have had two flats on my truck (both passenger side,) and my wife has had 2 flats, both on drivers side. Haven’t had a flat in years before that.
weird.
all were fixed for free at Discount tire. I’m not sure what a “sawbuck” is, but I will generally tip the guy a couple dollars if I deal with the one who actually fixed my tire.
I’m missing out on a lot of this discussion, thanks to the “ignore” option.
But I wouldn’t try to patch the sidewall of a wheelbarrow tire.
Just sayin’.
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Is there such a thing? Aren’t all tire leaks kind of critical?
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You have been lucky is all. I think it was Goodyear that lost a suit for 12 million dollars over a patched sidewall. Months later it blew out, the vehicle rolled, and multiple occupants were killed.
Hypothetical. Assume the above vehicle and occupants belonged to you and the occupants were all family members. Investigators want to know who applied that sidewall patch.
Are you gonna 'fess up to it? Gonna feel any remorse for manslaughter or negligent homicide?
Gonna revamp your opinion that sidewall patches are fine and no problem?
As for the pic in the original post, independent shops and car dealers also see the same kind of ridiculous behavior.
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I used to work at a company that had several buildings in an industrial park and they were spread out. One set of buildings was across the street from a scrap processor. The road in front of the scrap processor always had screws, bolts, nails and other debris that could puncture a tire. The shortest distance between the building with my office and the remote site went right past the scrap processor. I had several tread punctures and put patches in all of them. After about six months of patching tires I either walked or drove out the front of the industrial park, around it, and back in the rear to avoid damaging my tires. The folks that worked down there all came in the back way to avoid driving past the scrap processor.
When I was a little kid in the 1950s, there was a garage near our home that re-lined the inner casing of a car tire, like a retread, but on the inside (today, those liners are sold for bicycles to prevent thorn flats…). These old liners were thick and heavy to install, they put the rubber cement on using a paint brush from a gallon can and then applied the liner inside the tire. They then installed the tire on the rim, inserted an inner tube, inflated the inner tube and said give a day or two to dry. I cannot image how any tire like this could ever be balanced, but it was done…
I imaging came about due the Depression and the war rationing of WWII and remained popular in the days before state vehicle inspections were required and driving a bald tire until it blew was considered good consumerism…
But, back on point, what Old-Days-Rick is missing is that the sidewall flexes a lot with ever revolution of the tire and the patch and the sidewall flex differently and the patch will fail. A plug in a tire tread does not flex the same way and therefore is more or less a permanent repair.
I had a service station job as teenager, mostly filling tanks, washing windows, but fixed a few flats using the plug method. I think we charged $4. But $30 in today’s prices seems pretty reasonable for a flat repair where they remove the tire from the rim and patch from the inside. Even in my teenage job I don’t think the owner would allow any sidewall repairs.
Mr Rick, makes good sense to be concerned about tire shops not treating your car well. My solution was to purchase inexpensive tire changing and bubble balance machines. Decision was pretty easy $$-wise, b/c I was in the process of replacing tires on both vehicles, 8 tires at $20 each replacement fee, -$160, compared to around $90 for both machines. Of course there’s a lot of work involved, so probably doesn’t make sense if you billed yourself for all that work. But for me, just another chance to have some fun in the shop.
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You’re falling into the Russian Roulette trap. You figure that because you got away with doing it so many times, it must be safe. But if you beat the odds in Russian Roulette 100 times, that does not mean that the 101st time you pull the trigger you will not blow your brains out.
NASA fell into the same trap and destroyed two shuttles because of it. They knew there were problems with the solid rocket boosters and with the external tank insulation knocking tiles off of the vehicle. But because they’d launched a bunch of shuttles in the past without killing the astronauts, they figured they could get away with it forever. They were wrong, and condemned 14 people to die because of their hubris.
As for the plug price, you can spend just about that at McDonalds for one person, and you get lousy food and sugar water. Spend it at the tire shop and you get a tire that’s fixed properly and is unlikely to fail for thousands of miles. I know which one I think is the better bargain.
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My wife had a breakfast gathering at Perkins a couple days ago which is just down the street from the tire store. I gave her a $25 gift card that I had to use for breakfast. When she came back $22 was deducted for one breakfast. Not even enough left for a cup of coffee. Yeah been to the store lately? $27 and I bet you didn’t even leave a tip.
How is a tire going to blow out from a pinhole leak? What if I just kept adding air once a week? Would it be in danger of blowout then?
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Why would you think a pinhole (and a plug is more than that) is going to stay a pinhole? Factor in sidewall flex, heat, and aged rubber and that pinhole could become tennis ball sized in a fraction of a second. And while you may add air once a week that does not mean that the average consumer is ever going to think about air in a tire until it’s flat or blown out.
Fact remains; any tire manufacturer or anyone in the habit of servicing tires should never patch a sidewall as it is not recommended by anyone that I know of. A 100 years ago in my later high school years I worked in a gas station pumping gas and doing light mechanic work. We were told, even while fighting off dinosaurs, to refuse any tire repair that involved the sidewalls.
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I remember patching sidewalls when I worked in gas stations back in the 50s… Those would be nail hols, no tears ,and I patched them from the inside. ALL of those tires were bias ply and they do not flex the sidewall anyway near as much as a radial.
As far as plug vs patch, my rule used to be, if the tire has more than 50% tre4ad left , I have it patched, if less than 50 % I plug it. I have honorably retired my tire irons so I let others patch them.
I am also not the average driver. I don’t panic in an emergency and I had quite a few blowouts in my early days when my choice was drive on bad tires or walking.
Don’t hit the brake in a blowout until you have good control of the car, let the friction of the blown tire slow the car and don’t over steer or over correct.
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Hi Rick:
I see that as being a fair price.
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Great practical advice if tire blows. I’ll add that control of car is harder to maintain if front tires blows, rear is preferred place to experience a blown tire.
Is it worse to have a front or rear tire blowout?
Rear-tire blowouts are usually more disruptive and dangerous than front-tire blowouts, as drivers have no control over the rear end of the vehicle. Front-tire blowouts are still dangerous but generally easier to manage, as you should be able to steer to counteract the force of the blowout.Dec 29, 2020
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