I borrowed a neighbor’s hand cart. The tires were flat. I fixed it for her a year or so ago (someone had given it to her; it lacked many wheel bolts.) and pumped the tires up to the rated 30 psi then. I pumped them up, found they lost 3 pounds in one day. I took the wheel apart, inflated the tube, held it under water in the sink, saw no leak. There are no thorns or defects in the tires. The valve looks good. The tube has the same thickness as auto tubes. Do sealants, such as Slime™, make them less permeable? She’s a bit silly, thought they were still properly inflated.
Certainly not 3lbs in one day.
What was the temperature on the first day vs the second? A tire’s air pressure will fluctuate based on ambient temperature, roughly 1psi for every 10 degrees F of temp difference. Was it really hot one day and quite cold the next?
I had to inflate my tube quite a bit higher and put it in water to find a couple small punctures. $10 fir a new tube. I have read that slime works in a tube but don’t use it on a tire. Sometimes the tube will get pinched using screwdrivers putting th3 tire on but if they are bolt together not a problem. $10 or 15 for slime or $20 for new tubes or just a patch kit. Myself I’d just put new tubes in and be done with it.
I know that @RandomTroll post was for a hand cart so I am not questioning the use of Slim or other similar product for its anti-leak capability, But I would like to re-emphasize that precautionary use of Slime or other similar products in any vehicle other that a bicycle, a dirt motorcycles, a wheel barrel, etc…
It is not recommended for long-term use in vehicles like cars, trucks, road motorcycles, etc… It can slowly dry out and with pooling it can create a serious imbalance in the tires. Additionally, the emergency repair products only have a recommended use of 100 to 500 miles (depending on product…). And not all products can be used with tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS).
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The same: it’s inside.
I’ve found hundreds of leaks in bicycle tubes.
They are.
HF has them for $5, so probably better. It may not matter. I suspect she uses it so rarely that even a good tube would deflate between uses. How quickly does an auto tube deflate? My pickup’s tires lose about a pound a month; my bicycle’s tubes, which I inflate to 100 psi, lose a few pounds daily.
The only time I’ve used that stuff was in my wheel barrow tire. Don’t remember if it leaked around the rim or side of the tire. Couldn’t find the right size replacement so just dumped that stuff in. Been working fir a couple years now.
If they make them in your size, go to Solid Rubber Tires and never have to think about it again… lol
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Just can’t help it but if you go to solid tires, use that inner tube to sit on if you have any ruts in your yard.
Are we not talking about a hand truck, 2 wheel dolly??
I have used both pneumatic tires and solid rubber tires hand trucks, not issues with either, but never had to air up the solid ones…
Even the standard one that U-HAUL rents and sells has 8” solid rubber flat-free tires
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Yeah my bad. It was late but mowers on my mind. Anyone who had hernia surgery though would understand the need to sit on an inner tube while mowing. My apologies.
Had a friend who did not have Hernia surgery, but hemorrhoid surgery and he had to sit on a special pad (like an small inner tube) that I think the doctor charged Medicare like a $100 for… We let him know he could have saved the government $95 with a Wheel Barrel inner tube from Western Auto… And he could fix his wheel barrel when he did not need to sit on it any longer… BTW, the “Pad” came with instructions from Medicare that they would only provide one pad each 5-years… My friend said that will not happen, he’ll never go through that again… L 
L . . .
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I’ve had freshly inflated auto tires leak 3 pounds in a day, then after that no more leaks. all those were due to rim leaks. I guess as the air pressure initially lowers , the tire shape changes which stops the leak at the rim. The best way I know of to find rim leaks, figure out a way to hold the wheel exactly horizontal, then use a soft paintbrush to apply soapy water to the rim/tire interface. Leaks show up as a patch of tiny bubbles, but may take 30 minutes or more to become visible. The wheel has to be exactly horizontal, otherwise the soap/water mix will all move to the lowest part.
I have a bicycle tire that leaks 1/4 pound per day, yet I’ve never seen any bubbles when it is submerged . Frustrating, but solution is simple, I just pump it back up again once a week. My guess, whatever is leaking, only leaks when the tire is stressed, like riding over a bump in the road, accelerating, braking, etc.
Haven’t bought a new bike since 1970. So are the new ones tubeless now? You can use some of that sealer on the rims if so. If air comes through the side of the valve then could be a tube leak. I suspect it leaks more at higher pressure when you pump it up.
I buy them cheaply on the open market. Maybe the physician’s is better.
Not with inner tubes, which is my question.
! You measure that precisely?
Butyl is permeable to air. Some will leave just for that reason. There are plastic tubes that are less permeable. There are thicker rubber tubes, usually sold as thorn-proof, that leak more slowly.
No.
Valve leaks are obvious, at least on tubes.
Yes. It’s a function of pressure.
Nobody has answered my question: how quickly does an automobile tube lose pressure?
Are you taking it up to max pressure?? If so then add some weight over it while under water, it is probably from the weight of the bike and or you making it leak…
Modern day automotive tires do not use innertubes on the highway (very unsafe), racing doesn’t count… lol
And most drag slicks run 8-15 PSI and check the air pressures before and after every round for data… That is probably why nobody has answered your/that question…
As far as how fast does air leak from an innertube in general?? Just like tires, it will depend on the age, what mill the rubber is, quality control, rubber compound, Different rubber blends provide different rates of permeation. …
But as for an automotive tire depending on everything, they naturally can loose about 1-3 pounds a month, and as someone else already said, for every 10 degree drop in temp they can loose a pound of air…
George,
Tires expand when pressurized - especially in the first 24 hours. Our tire lab would overinflate tires about 3 psi the night before a test and recheck just before the test began. Usually, the pressure was right where it needed to be. (OK, we used a highly accurate pressure gauge that measured to the nearest 0.1 psi and the tires always required a bit of adjustment! But they were close enough for normal purposes.)
That rate of leakage is likely spread over a large area and is difficult to detect unless you submerge the tire for several hours and look at the bubbles forming on the surface. Sometimes you can see a concentration of bubbles at the value or the rim/tire interface.
purposes.)
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As was pointed out, automobiles normally don’t use tubes (There are some exceptions)
But the rate tubes normally lose pressure is slow enough that it is barely noticeable. On the order of a fraction of a psi a month.
Ah … Mmmm… not exactly.
Butyl is used for tubes and innerliners because they are relatively IMpermeable to air. Of course, the thicker the butyl, the slower the air loss - but butyl is not totally airtight. Virtually nothing is!
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8 pounds a month.