Would you plug this tire?

Just curious.  NMNA.

Owner was asking for a source for a replacement tire.

I suggested that he try getting it repaired, first.  From some of the comments, it's like I suggested he set his toddler loose in a fireworks factory with a box of matches.

I might plug it, but I would keep it as a spare.  Just a tough location.

I would and have, but only with a Tech style plug that more or less becomes a permanent part of the tire.

I'd also watch it like a hawk to make sure no bubbles form.

Duke said:

... it's like I suggested he set his toddler loose in a fireworks factory with a box of matches.

Excellent simile!  It's colorful language like this that ensures that this place is more fun than a barrel of grease monkeys.

Addendum:  Only on MY car.  Customer car?  Forget it, I don't want to assume that liability.

I would, looks like the damage is entirely in the tread.

Plug? Absolutely not. I would never plug any tire, don't trust it, regardless of how many others have had success with. 

Now PATCH? Yes, I've even tracked a sportbike on a patched tire and took an R1 to the rev limiter in 6th gear on a patched tire. 

if it was one of those mushroom-style plugs that's really a patch that gets pushed through from outside, and it was for my own car, then yes.   otherwise no.

I would, given how much tread is left.  If the tire were cheap and/or used up, I wouldn't.  That tire is neither cheap, nor used up.  

Ideally you can find a tire shop that will patch it without being dorks about it.  Take the rim in and tell them it's for your track-only vehicle?  Patch is better than a plug, but I wouldn't have any qualms plugging it either.  

In reply to z31maniac :

That is why I specified Tech plugs.  They vulcanize to the rubber.  Within five minutes, the only way to remove them is with a drill.

Patch plugs are of course better, but those Tech plugs are incredible.

Our Tech distributor used to demonstrate them by ramming an awl through the sidewall of his truck.  He must have had at least twenty plugs... in the sidewall.  Eventually the tire wore out.

On my car, yes, and I have. But not on anyone else’s. 

Last year we had a tire pick up a nail in just about the same position, a tad more inboard. Had it patched to see if it would hold - otherwise we would need to buy a full set. I was leery, since I did tire repairs when radials first came out, the shop (Big O) thought it would hold. It held for a bit less than a year but the flexing worked the patch loose. 

I think a plug, installed very tightly and glued, might work longer, but I would keep an eye on it. The problem with a plug would be that the damage to the tread lug would work further apart.

Knurled. said:

In reply to z31maniac :

That is why I specified Tech plugs.  They vulcanize to the rubber.  Within five minutes, the only way to remove them is with a drill.

Patch plugs are of course better, but those Tech plugs are incredible.

 

Our Tech distributor used to demonstrate them by ramming an awl through the sidewall of his truck.  He must have had at least twenty plugs... in the sidewall.  Eventually the tire wore out.

I've never seen/heard of those before. What are they using to heat the tire up past 280°?

L5wolvesf said:

Last year we had a tire pick up a nail in just about the same position, a tad more inboard. Had it patched to see if it would hold - otherwise we would need to buy a full set. I was leery, since I did tire repairs when radials first came out, the shop (Big O) thought it would hold. It held for a bit less than a year but the flexing worked the patch loose. 

I think a plug, installed very tightly and glued, might work longer, but I would keep an eye on it. The problem with a plug would be that the damage to the tread lug would work further apart.

The patch worked loose? Or a plug worked loose? 

To "patch" a tire, they remove it from the wheel, and literally apply a glued patch to the inside of the tire where the hole is. If the tire wasn't taken off the wheel, it's just a plug, regardless of what anyone calls it. 

done a few myself, had others done at a tire shop.     Never a problem.

 even ran a track day with a self plug.

I patched this one at the beginning of the year.

So far so good! You’re going to have a hard time finding a shop that’ll do it though. 

Internal  round chemical patch is the way to go.  That pictured hole seems to be in the tread, not the sidewall, so my call would have been repairable.  

    When I used to repair tires 45 or so years ago we would pull the nail and fill the hole with raw rubber by pushing it through with a dull icepick.  Then we "cooked" it, that is vulcanized the new rubber, with a thing that looked like a giant C-clamp with one end a heating element and you clamped the top and bottom of the patched hole. 

I did hundreds of  tires this way and it worked fine.  But these were almost all bias ply tires with nylon or rayon reinforcement and no belts.  When steel belts came out the steel belts made it harder to push the raw rubber through the hole and it took longer to vulcanize the patch because the steel was a giant heat sink. 

The Michelin salesman told us to try internal chemical patches as that was Michelin's recommendation for their steel belted radials.   You take out the foreign object, buff the interior tire area around the hole with a rotary wire brush, apply the proper rubber cement that was compatible with the patch, then peel and stick the patch on.  Then we rolled the patch down with a knurling wheel and it was good to go.  These, IMO opinion, worked better than  plugs and was way faster than vulcanizing the raw rubber plug.  

 I only saw one of these chemical patches fail once and it was because the tire changer was a lazy guy who thought he could skip the buffing step.  The tire was a huge tubeless front tire like you see on the front of a cement truck.   It was leaking before it was even fully aired up.  He was told to either take it back apart and fix it right or he was fired.    He did it but I was  hoping he would quit because he was always being lazy and complaining about everything.

There is a plug on the market that is a combination plug and patch.  You need a special tool, it pushes the plug through, but you bottom out with the base which is a larger diameter chemical patch.  This method was for larger holes in bias ply tires but no way I would try it on a modern steel belted radial.      

I will add that we refused to patch holes in the sidewalls because the methods described above did not hold up.   There is a method to repair sidewall damage but its best left to slower speed vehicles with really expensive large tires.  It involves grinding out the rubber around the hole or split, splicing in layers of matting similar to fiberglas and raw rubber then vulcanize the whole thing.  This method has no place in modern high speed vehicles, the out of balance problem alone is enough to dis-allow it.

My dad had one of those vulcanize tools.    I may have used it myself.  

I can't remember everything.

For beating around town?? Yes.

For a vehicle that regularly sees a lot of interstate? Probably not. 

z31maniac said:

L5wolvesf said:

Last year we had a tire pick up a nail in just about the same position, a tad more inboard. Had it patched to see if it would hold - otherwise we would need to buy a full set. I was leery, since I did tire repairs when radials first came out, the shop (Big O) thought it would hold. It held for a bit less than a year but the flexing worked the patch loose. 

I think a plug, installed very tightly and glued, might work longer, but I would keep an eye on it. The problem with a plug would be that the damage to the tread lug would work further apart.

The patch worked loose? Or a plug worked loose? 

To "patch" a tire, they remove it from the wheel, and literally apply a glued patch to the inside of the tire where the hole is. If the tire wasn't taken off the wheel, it's just a plug, regardless of what anyone calls it. 

Correct a patch. I watched, they removed the tire from the wheel, applied a glued patch to the inside of the tire where the hole was. I had thought they would use a plug but the store Mgr said they don't do plugs, which I thought was odd. When we went back I looked at the patch it had worked loose. Presumably because it was partly on the inner shoulder which flexed. A patch on the flat section would not be subject to that much flexing.

L5wolvesf said:

z31maniac said:

L5wolvesf said:

Last year we had a tire pick up a nail in just about the same position, a tad more inboard. Had it patched to see if it would hold - otherwise we would need to buy a full set. I was leery, since I did tire repairs when radials first came out, the shop (Big O) thought it would hold. It held for a bit less than a year but the flexing worked the patch loose. 

I think a plug, installed very tightly and glued, might work longer, but I would keep an eye on it. The problem with a plug would be that the damage to the tread lug would work further apart.

The patch worked loose? Or a plug worked loose? 

To "patch" a tire, they remove it from the wheel, and literally apply a glued patch to the inside of the tire where the hole is. If the tire wasn't taken off the wheel, it's just a plug, regardless of what anyone calls it. 

Correct a patch. I watched, they removed the tire from the wheel, applied a glued patch to the inside of the tire where the hole was. I had thought they would use a plug but the store Mgr said they don't do plugs, which I thought was odd. When we went back I looked at the patch it had worked loose. Presumably because it was partly on the inner shoulder which flexed. A patch on the flat section would not be subject to that much flexing.

SO with the tire on the wheel, you could see through to see the patch had moved? 

Well hell, even the robots don't weld the cars perfect everytime!

z31maniac said:

Knurled. said:

In reply to z31maniac :

That is why I specified Tech plugs.  They vulcanize to the rubber.  Within five minutes, the only way to remove them is with a drill.

Patch plugs are of course better, but those Tech plugs are incredible.

 

Our Tech distributor used to demonstrate them by ramming an awl through the sidewall of his truck.  He must have had at least twenty plugs... in the sidewall.  Eventually the tire wore out.

I've never seen/heard of those before. What are they using to heat the tire up past 280°?

  They are solid rubber plugs with a grayish outer coating, and you install them with an activator chemical that cold vulcanizes it.  If you dip one of the plugs in the chemical, in a day or two you have a useless jar of jelly, so there's definitely some chemical reaction going on.

Tire manufacturer will tell you to replace it.  

Tire repair company will tell you to repair.  

That location, I would plug.  

Everyone who says plugs don't work either uses the wrong plug, or doesn't know how to install them.

z31maniac said:

L5wolvesf said:

z31maniac said:

L5wolvesf said:

Last year we had a tire pick up a nail in just about the same position, a tad more inboard. Had it patched to see if it would hold - otherwise we would need to buy a full set. I was leery, since I did tire repairs when radials first came out, the shop (Big O) thought it would hold. It held for a bit less than a year but the flexing worked the patch loose. 

I think a plug, installed very tightly and glued, might work longer, but I would keep an eye on it. The problem with a plug would be that the damage to the tread lug would work further apart.

The patch worked loose? Or a plug worked loose? 

To "patch" a tire, they remove it from the wheel, and literally apply a glued patch to the inside of the tire where the hole is. If the tire wasn't taken off the wheel, it's just a plug, regardless of what anyone calls it. 

Correct a patch. I watched, they removed the tire from the wheel, applied a glued patch to the inside of the tire where the hole was. I had thought they would use a plug but the store Mgr said they don't do plugs, which I thought was odd. When we went back I looked at the patch it had worked loose. Presumably because it was partly on the inner shoulder which flexed. A patch on the flat section would not be subject to that much flexing.

SO with the tire on the wheel, you could see through to see the patch had moved? 

Well hell, even the robots don't weld the cars perfect everytime!

Not exactly. With the tire dismounted, to install another tire, I saw the patch and it was loose on the outer edge of the tire. Big O also marked the tire as 'do not resell' since they did not want to deal with it again.

And . . . my robot welds better than yours and better than me too :) 

Separate plug and patch is probably the best way, the plug seals the hole from water incursion for the belts and the plug seals the liner. Most shops use the “two finger” from the edge go/no go on tire repairs, but I had a rope plug put in on my f150 about an inch in a month or so ago and it’s held fine to date