Manly tire plug

Ran over... something in the road. I didn't realize it until it sounded like someone was shooting an automatic BB gun at the car for a second, then we started pulling to the right. Stopped the car after a half mile of wishful thinking to find a flat REAR tire (gotta love tight diffs) and a huge hole in the tread that was lightly jetting smoke.

After some phone calls to ensure that, yep, none in my contacts list are anywhere near where I am, and a helpful state trooper let me know that the next exit was four miles away, I took stock of inventory. I had a tire with a big-ass hole, I had a crappy 12v air compressor, and... a baggie of 13B parts. Okay, I can do something with this.

Only lost ten pounds by the time I got to the gas station. And that's just the beginning of the story.

Winter tires in July? Or coming back from rallycross?

Driving TO the rallycross. I didn't compete on the thing (it had a habit of spitting the plugs out, athough shoving three in there at once without glue seems to be holding, sort-of) but I was able to borrow another set of tires to compete on so it all still worked out okay.

They're snow tires, subtle difference from winter tires. And they're currently the ONLY tires I have, so yeah that is what gets run. Looks like I get to buy two more tires, unless the distributor has a 235/45-17 Mastercraft snow tire that has been shaved to 6/32 of tread.

I have done a screw and rubber cement before

So what did you plug it with? I can't quite tell from the photo... A bolt?

That's too close to the edge to be safely repaired.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: That's too close to the edge to be safely repaired.

tell that to my truck that has 5k miles on a plug right on the corner of the tread.

one time i caught a nail with my beater crown vic. i plugged it at a gas station, filled it, and hopped on the highway. it blew the plug out. i quickly hooked 2 plugs on the insertion tool and jammed them in the hole as a temporary stop leak/get home fix. it remained that way until i sold the car several months/thousand miles later.

I have nothing against push in plugs, I've used them myself (slathered in rubber cement and the hole slathered in cement prior to insertion, and allowed to dry for a while before inflating) multiple times as permanent repairs on tires not worth taking in for a proper patch and plug. However this doesn't make all the rules stupid and worthless, you should breakdown, inspect, and likely discard tires that were run flat for any appreciable distance, and you should never patch/plug on or near a sidewall. The reason is belted tires have a nasty habit of tread separation when damaged near the sidewall. Plus that close you don't know without breaking it down whether or not whatever caused the puncture messed up the sidewall internally.

There's a reason why no tire manufacture allows repairing past the outermost tread grooves in their road hazard guidelines, and instead pay to replace the tire.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: That's too close to the edge to be safely repaired.

There's no sidewall bulge, evidence that the hole is through the circumferential belting, but it is in the shoulder zone where the tire flexes a lot more. Which is why it would still spit the plugs out and/or leak from the plugs after driving.

It doesn't help that it's a big hole. An 8mm bolt fell right in. Luckily, there was ONE 10x1.25 bolt in the baggie, and I've got no idea what it was from. I couldn't push it in past the belts, so I tried rolling the car over the partially-installed bolt and that pushed it in. It still pulled out fairly easily after I got to the gas station and bought their entire supply of tire plug kits.

Even if the hole was in a repairable spot, and not so large, the tire is still junk because it was run flat for too long. This is a simple fix to get off the road, followed by a (nto photographed) series of fixes to get me to work on Monday, at which point both tires will be scrapped.