Nail in tire
 

I just recently purchased OEM S02's from tirerack a little over a month ago and when i was under my car, i noticed a nail in the tire that is very close to the sidewall. I've taken the tire to costco, discount tire, evan's tire, and none of them say they can fix it and say that the tire must be replaced. Is there anything i can do to salvage this tire? I really hate that i put only 1000 miles on these tires and i already have to replace one of them :mad:. Oh, and this is for me not buying the road hazard protection :banghead:.

hmmm... by really close, is it on the sidewall or not? cuz if it is i dont think you can repair it, but if it is on the tread, you can definately repair it.

I just repaired my wife tire that had a nail in it. If there is tread on both sides of the hole you can use a plug kit. The tools are about 5 bucks and the plugs are about 2 bucks. Hell as long as you do the plug right it will work great. If it's definately sidewall........forget it.....

Its really close to the sidewall. All the tire shops i've been to have said that it is too close to the sidewall and that they have nothing that can plug it.

You have two options--no, three--leave the nail in there (really inexpensive), patch it yourself and get some good life insurance or spend a couple bills and get a tire that's not going to blow out on the freeway (or on an offramp). You're going to be spending a lot more if something goes wrong.

:iagree: If 3 tire shops refused to repair my tire, I'd think that they may be on to something. Suck it up and replace the tire.

Yeah, if a tire shop said they could not repair the tire i would definitely buy a new tire and prevent an accident from happening.

Before you buy a new tire though, pull the nail out and place the tire and rim in a tub of water to see if the nail even penetrated all the way through by looking for air bubbles. I did that once and found out that the nail didn't go through the tire and i was able to drive away happy :D

Good thinking KLN, I'm going to try that. *Crossing fingers* haha.

Blow outs are pretty rare in properly inflated tubeless tires. The trouble with leaving the nail in or a patch too close to the sidewall is that it could leak, leading to low pressure, and drive at speed on an underinflated tire leads to overheating, which can lead to failure.

So the nail or a leaky patch might not get you directly - heck even if the nail pulled out or the patch failed completely while driving you would probably be able to stop under control. If you don't want the pressure like a hawk you get be in big trouble.

If it was me, I would leave it in and check it before each drive and see if it holds air OK. Then get some "RideOn" sealant Ride On Web Link for just in case. Heck, even it it leaked pretty fast I think I might get out some RideOn in there and keep checking it. That should stop the leak. Then just check it a lot more often than "normal" and you should be OK. I also use those Accu-Pressure valve caps Link for caps . I have them on my wife and daughter's cars and mine. One thing I have learned is that they don't show small drops in pressures well. So if you run 32 psi then get 34 or 36 psi caps. At 32 they will show green, but a drop to 30 psi or so should show yellow.

If you can't get the leak stopped, then you run the risk of driving at speed with an underinflated tire and need to replace it. If you track or otherwise race your car then buy a new tire.

Dennis