Yes, that was in your tire

My wife texted me yesterday “I have a flat tire on my car.  Think there is a nail stuck in it.”

Roadside assistance came to put her donut on for her, she went on her way.  I just got it patched tonight.

These two items were pulled from the tire:

She still doesn’t believe *that* was in her tire 

what exactly IS that?

Well the bit on the left is a screw.

The piece on the right is a passage door knob/handle spindle.

It looks like a door knob axel. Edit: Beat me to it :)

Foxworx said:

Well the bit on the left is a screw.

 

 

The piece on the right is a passage door knob/handle spindle.

 

 

This is what it looked like to me as well.

It was all inside the tire too, just a couple millimeters of it sticking out.

Amazing, that scale got in there without getting bent.

I had a customer have their Malibu towed in because they had an entire flat file rammed into the tire once. those were the first of the cars that GM ditched the spare on and replaced with a can of sealer and an air pump, and this proved the folly of that, because no amount of sealer was making that car driveable, with a good 2 or 3 inches of file still sticking out of the tire and the other end butted up against the rim.

Aye, and I've seen debris rammed through the wheel on a few occasions.

The company my dad worked for got a new F-150 back in the late 90's with a pair of scissors left inside the tire from the factory.

A friend lost a rear tire on his Mustang to a 6" Crescent wrench that went through the tread head first.  I think his front tire hit it, and flipped it up to just the right angle for the rear tire to impale itself.

He still has the wrench.  Very expensive way to acquire tools.

My grandpa was a tire dealer for 50 years.  I worked for him as a teenager in the 1970's so fixed a lot of flats.    

Armstrong Tires (Rhino Tough) came out with a "self sealing" tire.  You could put a hole in it with  a nail, and some sort of liquid rubber was contained in the plies that basically filled the hole around the nail and air cured so the leak stopped.      When you pulled the nail out the liquid would seal that hole as well.   (Obviously this did not catch on)

So one of our relatives bought a set. These tires were very expensive but he got the family price.   He got a flat within a week.  A piece of small diameter hollow tubing had pierced the tire.  The sealing compound worked around the exterior of the tubing as advertised.  Unfortunately the air all came out through the hollow tubing.

You can't make this stuff up.

First set of aftermarket sticky summer tires I put on my Mustang got a flat not long after I bought them. The guy pulled a 1" twig out of the tread. Like . less than 1/8 diameter. Just a little tiny stick. 

I still have a hard time believeing that went through a tire.

jharry3 said:

 

Armstrong Tires (Rhino Tough) came out with a "self sealing" tire.  You could put a hole in it with  a nail, and some sort of liquid rubber was contained in the plies that basically filled the hole around the nail and air cured so the leak stopped.      When you pulled the nail out the liquid would seal that hole as well.   (Obviously this did not catch on)

It sorta did! That's basically what the spray-in tire slime used to seal leaky tires is, the main difference being that it's not usually put in as a preventative measure, and it's very much like the normal setup for tubeless bicycle tires these days (except it's just sloshing around inside the tire, not between different plies of the tread as in the Armstrong tire, if I understand correctly).

In reply to jharry3 :

Pontiac Montanas came with self sealing Generals.  They had a very thick layer of almost-solid goo in the tread area, and weighed a lot.

On a whim, before changing out a set, I took an awl and went to town on one.  The holes sealed instantly.

These are some crazy stories! The best I’ve seen is a wheel weight, probably 3 ounces, went straight through. 

In reply to spandak :

I was hoping others would share their stories too, figuring those who do this type of work more have seen some crazy stuff.

I worked in auto shops from 1980 to 1988, alignment and suspension mostly, so we sold and serviced tires as well.

A few things I can remember removing, besides every size and type of nail and screw, are half a pair of ~10" channel locks, a spark plug, and a frog gig.

In reply to SaltyDog :

What is a frog gig?

Adrian_Thompson said:

In reply to SaltyDog :

What is a frog gig?

About twice as much as a henway?

Adrian_Thompson said:

In reply to SaltyDog :

What is a frog gig?

Basically a long fork for stabbing the frog so you can put it in a bag, take it home and cook/eat it...

The area where I live has a TON of construction happening around. There is a lot of road debris.

We had Cooper RS3s on my wife's car and it seemed like every one of them got flat in a year. We quit using those and started getting the replacement warranty on any tire we do buy now.

It already paid for itself on the 4Runner.

I got a 6" piece of a retractable radio antenna in a rear tire, it's amazing how the timing has to be to get that jammed into the tire. At the track a few years ago one of my friends picked up an alternator bolt, along with trashing the tire, it went through the wheel about an inch as well. Ultraclyde's twig has to be the weirdest so far, how did that not just break as it was run over?

I had a 4" bolt take out a rear tire on the freeway. I know it was the culprit even though it wasn't in the tire. 

It was embedded in the fender liner though...

A neighbor got the handle of a set of slip joint pliers through a rear tractor tire once, in the field.  A semi driver acquaintence once managed to jab both hooks of a tart strap/bungee cord through the sidewall of his front semi tire, so it was stretched across the face of the wheel.

There is nothing so odd that it hasn't gone through a tire somewhere.

My tire guy found a trailer hitch pin bouncing around in one of mine once. Blew my mind.