Keys puncturing tires

Has anybody ever heard if someone rolling over a car/ house key and it puncture tires? I found a house key lodged and my tires? Isn’t that something that would be deliberately done because when keys fall, they automatically fall flat.

What if they landed on something else like other keys on a key chain? Or a rock or other debris. There may be a mangled key chain behind you somewhere with a key missing.

To deliberately puncture a tire there are far more effective things to use, like glass, nails and screws.

Yup!
Back in the '60s, my brother had a tire puncture, and the culprit was a nail that had been driven though a champagne cork. The way that this device “stood up” in the roadway made it deadly to anyone who had the misfortune to drive over it.

A key?
Not so much…

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At work, I was told to check out a flat tire on one of our fleet trucks

When I dismounted the tire, guess what I found inside?

A file, complete with part of the handle . . . !

The puncture wound didn’t seem big enough to explain the file, but it was in there

Naturally, I discarded the tire and mounted a new one

So yeah, given that I saw a file inside a tire, I think it’s entirely possible for a key to puncture a tire

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Front tire or rear tire? The front tire can kick up the key, ready to impale the rear tire. Or the car in front of you could have done it. Weird stuff happens.

I agree, the way it happens according to the tire shop is the front kicks up the key or nail or whatever and throws it into the rear tire. May have been flat at one time but not when it flies up against the tire. That’s why he said most tire repairs are to the right rear.

I had a delivery driver come back from his rounds with a scissor stuck in the side the rear tire. I still think he might have just done it himself but who knows? The result was the same either way-new tire.

Most of the keys I have owned have been flimsy brass: I have a hard time imagining one of them making it through a tire.

A large family owned tire dealer here has a large glass top table in the waiting area and beneath the glass are some of the ridiculous pieces of debris they have removed from flats. And it is amazing what’s in there.

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I had a flat from a 1/4 inch bolt, but agree using a key to cause a flat intentionally seems unlikely.

In my 25 years of bicycling to work I’ve had one front flat, after rolling over part of a soda can, and about a dozen rear flats.

I once found a 7/16" combination wrench sticking out of the middle of the tread on a tire. the wrench (which wasn’t one of mine,) was in good shape, but for the life of me I could not get it out of the tire. It was an off brand, or I would have tried harder, lol

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The tire or the wrench. If it was a USA Craftsman, it could be worth some money. Still I think my scissors is the strangest-stuck right in the sidewall. Same driver that filled up a non-flex car with e-85 twice and caused a couple though damage. When working my motto was you couldn’t pay a good guy too much but you couldn’t pay a bad guy too little.

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solid brass is pretty strong. Not flimsy.

I agree wholeheartedly

A few of the guys at our shop are real workhorses, and they’re real sharp, too. So they’re a bargain, IMO :smiley:

And then there’s one lazy sack __ ____ who’s definitely being overpaid :frowning:

Unlikely things happen from time to time. That’d be my guess, a bit of bad luck.

Solid brass maybe, but I’ve broken keys off in locks with a bare hand (I’m no strongman) because they’ve stuck a little and I’ve pulled sideways before I’ve gotten them out.

It only has to remain rigid for a fraction of a second.

Hey, @RandomTroll, take your current car key in your bare hands, and try to bend it. I’m sure you can’t.

I didn’t say I could bend a key with my bare hands, only that I had inadvertently with 1 bare hand; the lock provided half of the holding onto. I’m surprised that everyone hasn’t done this. It hurt: it’s easier to hurt myself unintentionally - and not something I want to do for someone who wouldn’t believe my testimony even if I did it - and it would cost me a key.

One evening headed towards sundown I ran over a 12" long roofing eave gutter nail (never saw it…) and it dug itself straight in on a small 18" motorcycle tire. It ripped the tube to shreds and came very close to ending my life.
The bike’s rear tire blew out at 80 MPH on a long I-40 downhill and it took me a quarter mile to get that bike stopped.

I think my fingerprints were still molded into the grips when I sold the bike 3 years later.

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