Emergency tire sealer review

[GPinzone]

The topic comes up often and most people are against them. If you find yourself in a dire situation and waiting for roadside assistance isn't an option, what are you in for if you use one of these?

Here's a detailed YouTube review of 4 products:

In short, NEVER use fix-a-flat. There are other products that work incredibly well. Most do not seem to damage your rims, but all will be messy when it comes time to remove the tire from the rim. I wouldn't use any of these products on the stock Continentals with the foam inserts, but any other tires are fair game.

 

[tjkessler]

Check things carefully, some of the slime products are safe for TPMS and some will damage them.

 

[bruce4000]

On a related subject, anyone have experience with “run flat tires”. Saw an add for Bridgestone where they drive over spikes and keep going. There are a lot of lonely places in the us west where it’s hard to get to a tire shop and they don’t typically stock tires for Tesla’s (pickup country).

 

[GigaGrunt]

On a related subject, anyone have experience with “run flat tires”. Saw an add for Bridgestone where they drive over spikes and keep going. There are a lot of lonely places in the us west where it’s hard to get to a tire shop and they don’t typically stock tires for Tesla’s (pickup country).

No immediate usage with run flats. I would caution though that the rolling resistance of these could be a bit higher than stock tires, potential range hit.

 

[holmgang]

On a related subject, anyone have experience with “run flat tires”. Saw an add for Bridgestone where they drive over spikes and keep going. There are a lot of lonely places in the us west where it’s hard to get to a tire shop and they don’t typically stock tires for Tesla’s (pickup country).

Run flat are not flat-proof, they're just meant to provide some limited usability to limp you to safety. The downside is that the structural construction makes them ride worse than standard tires.

I'd rather use normal tires that are better 99.98% of the time. In the 0.02% chance that I flat somewhere out of reach of service, ill use canned sealant in a pinch.

 

[GPinzone]

I looked into runflats, but they're only available with 18" rims, not my 19" rims.

Check things carefully, some of the slime products are safe for TPMS and some will damage them.

That's covered in the video. They also aren't flammable.

 

[Phlier]

Most (all?) Model 3 OEM tires use a layer of sound insulating foam on the inside of the tread; this makes it impossible for the sealants shown in the video to work well, if at all.

Get yourself a good tire plug kit.

Edit:

I wouldn't use any of these products on the stock Continentals with the foam inserts, but any other tires are fair game.

I missed that on the first read through.