Tire Damage: seeking opinions on repair

Sierra1

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I would say yes. The stem on those patches is going to have a lot of surface area contact since it goes through the center of the lug. Seems near impossible for the plug/patch combo to fail.
 

RCinNC

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Sierra, what size wire patch plug do I need? It seems like they're sized by the width of the hole in the tire, but so far the Youtube videos I've seen don't much go into the sizing. Like I posted, the nail is about an 1/8" in diameter, and it seems like the wire patch plugs are sized according to the hole in the tire (i.e. one size fits holes up to 1/8", one size fits holes up to 1/4", etc). From what I've seen, I'd have to drill out the hole left by the nail to at least 1/8" so the stem on the wire patch plug would fit through it. Is that how they work?
 

gv550

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I’ve tried patching and plugging a puncture in a sidewall without success. In this case the only fix I would consider is an inner tube, although the T12 wheel isn’t well suited for that either. In my case I had another bike with tube-type wheels and used up the tire on it.
 

Cycledude

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That’s definitely not what I would call a sidewall puncture . No I definitely would not attempt to drill the hole out to 1/8 inch, I would use the 1/8 inch plug-patch and if the area is clean it should vulcanize to the tire just fine, I used one of those vulcanizing plug patches once many years ago and it worked excellent.
Maybe you should show us a picture of the puncture from the inside of the tire ?
 
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EricV

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Walk the tire in to a auto tire shop, not the front desk, the back where the bays are. Ask whomever you encounter if they can put a plug patch in to repair it, and that you'll pay cash on the spot, no receipt needed, no concern about liability, You just want the tire fixed and it's on you after that.

I've done that and $20 later I had a well repaired tire with the patch plug in place. The guy scuffed up the inside with a die grinder, reamed the hole, coated the inside area with cement goo, inserted the patch plug, pulled the tail thru, smoothed it out on the inside, then coated the whole inside area with more cement goo for good measure. Never had a problem with that to the end of the tire, 6-8k miles. Yours may require a little reaming to get the patch plug thru, or they might opt to just put a patch over it. Go with what ever their experience suggests, this is nothing new on car tires. I'm sure they have seen this before.

edit - It's a small, strait hole. I personally would just install a sticky string and be done with it.
 

RCinNC

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That’s definitely not what I would call a sidewall puncture . No I definitely would not attempt to drill the hole out to 1/8 inch, I would use the 1/8 inch plug-patch and if the area is clean it should vulcanize to the tire just fine, I used one of those vulcanizing plug patches once many years ago and it worked excellent.
Maybe you should show us a picture of the puncture from the inside of the tire ?


That's a close up of where the nail poked through. When I demounted the tire, you couldn't see the tip of the nail, just the small slit where it came all the way through.
 
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Sierra1

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B.T.D.T. But mine was a piece of a/c copper. That's when I found out that the "run flats" that BMW spec'ed. . . . were not actually run-flats. :D
 

Checkswrecks

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That's a close up of where the nail poked through. When I demounted the tire, you couldn't see the tip of the nail, just the small slit where it came all the way through.
RC -

Sorry but I’d STRONGLY recommend either using a tube or tossing the tire for two reasons. The first is that the patch will sit in the area of maximum flex, which is absolutely against the allowable repairs of ALL the tire manufacturers.

Second is that the hole didn’t cleanly go through, it pushed the inner liner (the built in tube material) away from the carcass plies. Using a patch will result in this spot “floating” back and forth to wear on the plies as the sidewall flexes. Especially with you doing so much highway it’s going to be a bad gamble to try to patch it.
 

Pdrhound

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it does look like it went through the side wall a bit. a tube would be my answer as well.

1. what did you end up doing?
2. anyone put a tube in a st10? bet that was a bear
 

RCinNC

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That tire went to the landfill almost a year ago, replaced by another new Mitas E07. I ran that tire until around March of this year; it was just about worn out when I hit something on the road and punctured that one too. I plugged that one just so I could get home, and then replaced that one with a new front and rear Shinko 705.
 

AZMike

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I sell tire repair products and actually went to school for tire repair. I would not repair and run that tire. All the heat and flex are right where the injury is. I would scrap it. IMHO
 
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