Model Y Tire Flat Tyre Issue & Advice

[Morpheus84]

So today I got a dreaded flat tire on my MY. I just thought I’d post this so you can learn from my experience and hopefully not have the same issues.

Background. I was travelling to work (60 miles) and left at 6am. When I hit a dual carriageway I got a tyre pressure warning, I also got a Tesla App notification. The pressure went from 43 PSI to 4 very quickly. I pulled over into a small unlit lay-by and inspected the tyre. It had a small hole in and it looked as if there had been a screw or object in there which had then become dislodged. I took out my holts tyre spray and fired in the whole can and then drove c.20 mph to the nearest garage.

Issues

- The tyre spray did nothing, do not rely on it for a flat tyre!
- Driving slow on 1 flat tyre in a normal car is usually ok. In a Tesla it is not. The car is so heavy that the rim destroys the sidewall
- Tesla Roadside are very helpful except:

1. They will only recover you 50 miles max.
2. You must provide them with a destination before any recovery vehicle is dispatched.

- The big issue was availability of the tyres. No one had them in stock and I have had to order them to a Kwik Fit in 2 days time.
- As Tesla Roadside will only give you one recovery per incident, it means my car is now outside a Kwik Fit 15 miles away waiting until Wednesday.
- I am now without car and forced to WFH
- The cost of 1 tyre is £304.

Lessons

- If you have a flat tyre stop immediately when it is safe. Do not attempt to get to somewhere else even if it’s only two miles away. Your tyre may be repairable but that drive will certainly write it off.
- Holts Tyreweld makes you feel good when it’s in the back of the car and gives a false sense of security. It’s useless, even for a small hole. Even the recovery guy said it doesn't work well in the foam filled tyres.
- Most suppliers; Kwik Fit/ ATS don’t have the tyre in stock so you will be waiting for a few days.
- If you get recovered to your home address, you will either need to get a mobile tyre replacement company to come out and fit a new tyre or pay for the movement of yours to a garage as Tesla Roadside will only move the car once and it must be within 50 miles.
- Finally price! Astronomical prices from everywhere, except Black Circles but delivery is long.

Future

- Im going to buy a spare tyre from Black Circles and keep it at home when I’m doing short journeys and take it with me during longer one. That way I know I’ll be able to get it fitted in a timely fashion and won’t be stranded somewhere in the country.

 

[Sixer]

Sounds like everyone’s worst nightmare. Glad to hear you are getting it resolved and that is sounds like you have had no damage to your alloy. I don’t feel like I can trust Tesla recovery. I have taken out a policy with the RAC.

 

[Jason71]

I don't think tyre foam works well with acoustic tyres due to the foam. If you want a get out of trouble solution you have to go with plugs I think

 

[Morpheus84]

I don't think tyre foam works well with acoustic tyres due to the foam. If you want a get out of trouble solution you have to go with plugs I think

That’s what the recovery guy said. I just thought id put it on here as everyone acts like it’s a must buy and will help out - it doesn’t.

 

[zoomer0056]

Thanks for this info. I've heard that the fix-a-flat goo doesn't work because of foam. I have a tire inflator and plug set for repair. However, like you've said it would be good to have a spare for long road trips, I need to get a spare.

 

[Overworked]

I bought a heavy duty jack, wheel brace breaker bar and socket and pucks and put them in the boot with a plug repair set and inflator. Just in case. I feel more confident with that on board.

 

[SR-Plus]

I don't think tyre foam works well with acoustic tyres due to the foam. If you want a get out of trouble solution you have to go with plugs I think

Yes I can see logically why the foam won’t work but why does Tesla then sell this repair kit?

Tire Repair Kit

The Tire Repair Kit contains an air compressor to regularly top off your tire pressure and a one-piece sealant canister to patch punctures. Simply attach the transparent hose to the tire valve and connect the plug to your vehicle's 12V outlet to begin repairing the hole and filling the tire. The...

shop.tesla.com

I have come across this solution which is said to be TPMS safe and works with any air compressor or again, there’s a bundle kit for which includes the compressor for a few more pounds. I don’t know if this is a viable solution?

Slime Assist Car Tyre Sealant | Halfords UK

Shop the latest Slime to the Rescue! Meet the newest addition to the Slime Assist Car tyre repair team – Slime Assist! With this compact, pressurized bottle, it only takes an air source to repair your emergency flat. at Halfords UK

www.halfords.com

 

[Adopado]

So today I got a dreaded flat tire on my MY. I just thought I’d post this so you can learn from my experience and hopefully not have the same issues.

Background. I was travelling to work (60 miles) and left at 6am. When I hit a dual carriageway I got a tyre pressure warning, I also got a Tesla App notification. The pressure went from 43 PSI to 4 very quickly. I pulled over into a small unlit lay-by and inspected the tyre. It had a small hole in and it looked as if there had been a screw or object in there which had then become dislodged. I took out my holts tyre spray and fired in the whole can and then drove c.20 mph to the nearest garage.

Issues

- The tyre spray did nothing, do not rely on it for a flat tyre!
- Driving slow on 1 flat tyre in a normal car is usually ok. In a Tesla it is not. The car is so heavy that the rim destroys the sidewall
- Tesla Roadside are very helpful except:

1. They will only recover you 50 miles max.
2. You must provide them with a destination before any recovery vehicle is dispatched.

- The big issue was availability of the tyres. No one had them in stock and I have had to order them to a Kwik Fit in 2 days time.
- As Tesla Roadside will only give you one recovery per incident, it means my car is now outside a Kwik Fit 15 miles away waiting until Wednesday.
- I am now without car and forced to WFH
- The cost of 1 tyre is £304.

Lessons

- If you have a flat tyre stop immediately when it is safe. Do not attempt to get to somewhere else even if it’s only two miles away. Your tyre may be repairable but that drive will certainly write it off.
- Holts Tyreweld makes you feel good when it’s in the back of the car and gives a false sense of security. It’s useless, even for a small hole. Even the recovery guy said it doesn't work well in the foam filled tyres.
- Most suppliers; Kwik Fit/ ATS don’t have the tyre in stock so you will be waiting for a few days.
- If you get recovered to your home address, you will either need to get a mobile tyre replacement company to come out and fit a new tyre or pay for the movement of yours to a garage as Tesla Roadside will only move the car once and it must be within 50 miles.
- Finally price! Astronomical prices from everywhere, except Black Circles but delivery is long.

Future

- Im going to buy a spare tyre from Black Circles and keep it at home when I’m doing short journeys and take it with me during longer one. That way I know I’ll be able to get it fitted in a timely fashion and won’t be stranded somewhere in the country.

You can’t get away with driving 2 miles on a flat tyre. Tyre sidewall damage beyond repair can take place with a light car in a few hundred yards eg Ford Fiesta (guess how I know).

Everyone would be well advised to sign up with a breakdown service unless they intend to go the whole hog and carry a spare of some description. Tesla have limitations to their call outs and you could well be out of the range of their service or out of working hours.

 

[spdpsba]

So today I got a dreaded flat tire on my MY. I just thought I’d post this so you can learn from my experience and hopefully not have the same issues.

Background. I was travelling to work (60 miles) and left at 6am. When I hit a dual carriageway I got a tyre pressure warning, I also got a Tesla App notification. The pressure went from 43 PSI to 4 very quickly. I pulled over into a small unlit lay-by and inspected the tyre. It had a small hole in and it looked as if there had been a screw or object in there which had then become dislodged. I took out my holts tyre spray and fired in the whole can and then drove c.20 mph to the nearest garage.

Issues

- The tyre spray did nothing, do not rely on it for a flat tyre!
- Driving slow on 1 flat tyre in a normal car is usually ok. In a Tesla it is not. The car is so heavy that the rim destroys the sidewall
- Tesla Roadside are very helpful except:

1. They will only recover you 50 miles max.
2. You must provide them with a destination before any recovery vehicle is dispatched.

- The big issue was availability of the tyres. No one had them in stock and I have had to order them to a Kwik Fit in 2 days time.
- As Tesla Roadside will only give you one recovery per incident, it means my car is now outside a Kwik Fit 15 miles away waiting until Wednesday.
- I am now without car and forced to WFH
- The cost of 1 tyre is £304.

Lessons

- If you have a flat tyre stop immediately when it is safe. Do not attempt to get to somewhere else even if it’s only two miles away. Your tyre may be repairable but that drive will certainly write it off.
- Holts Tyreweld makes you feel good when it’s in the back of the car and gives a false sense of security. It’s useless, even for a small hole. Even the recovery guy said it doesn't work well in the foam filled tyres.
- Most suppliers; Kwik Fit/ ATS don’t have the tyre in stock so you will be waiting for a few days.
- If you get recovered to your home address, you will either need to get a mobile tyre replacement company to come out and fit a new tyre or pay for the movement of yours to a garage as Tesla Roadside will only move the car once and it must be within 50 miles.
- Finally price! Astronomical prices from everywhere, except Black Circles but delivery is long.

Future

- Im going to buy a spare tyre from Black Circles and keep it at home when I’m doing short journeys and take it with me during longer one. That way I know I’ll be able to get it fitted in a timely fashion and won’t be stranded somewhere in the country.

Good tips, will get the plug repair set.

Few more things I found helpful:
- Anything less than 50miles ask them to move the vehicle home - trust me learnt my lessons. But other logistics need to be sorted out including work arrangement, WFH, second car etc.,
- Kwikfit mobile service fixed mine the next day - fortunately all their vehicles now come with pucks (according to the kwikfit man and they are aware of the torque setting etc., - the man was familiar with Tesla and he even asked me to switch off the tilt alarm etc.,). However, this may not be available in rural parts of the country and overnights etc., So spare tire is a good option.
- I got the Michelin PS the next day, but I understand I may not be lucky next time.
- Yes, having AA, RAC is helpful but sometime basic membership may not be that helpful - if you have the option to move the car to the garage you wanted etc., it will be very useful if you are more than 50miles away from home - availability of tires is a real issue, so a spare tyre is very handy.
- Flat tyre is a pain even in ICE cars if you are averse to some manual labour like me!

 

[SpanishJ0n]

So today I got a dreaded flat tire on my MY. I just thought I’d post this so you can learn from my experience and hopefully not have the same issues.

Background. I was travelling to work (60 miles) and left at 6am. When I hit a dual carriageway I got a tyre pressure warning, I also got a Tesla App notification. The pressure went from 43 PSI to 4 very quickly. I pulled over into a small unlit lay-by and inspected the tyre. It had a small hole in and it looked as if there had been a screw or object in there which had then become dislodged. I took out my holts tyre spray and fired in the whole can and then drove c.20 mph to the nearest garage.

Issues

- The tyre spray did nothing, do not rely on it for a flat tyre!
- Driving slow on 1 flat tyre in a normal car is usually ok. In a Tesla it is not. The car is so heavy that the rim destroys the sidewall
- Tesla Roadside are very helpful except:

1. They will only recover you 50 miles max.
2. You must provide them with a destination before any recovery vehicle is dispatched.

- The big issue was availability of the tyres. No one had them in stock and I have had to order them to a Kwik Fit in 2 days time.
- As Tesla Roadside will only give you one recovery per incident, it means my car is now outside a Kwik Fit 15 miles away waiting until Wednesday.
- I am now without car and forced to WFH
- The cost of 1 tyre is £304.

Lessons

- If you have a flat tyre stop immediately when it is safe. Do not attempt to get to somewhere else even if it’s only two miles away. Your tyre may be repairable but that drive will certainly write it off.
- Holts Tyreweld makes you feel good when it’s in the back of the car and gives a false sense of security. It’s useless, even for a small hole. Even the recovery guy said it doesn't work well in the foam filled tyres.
- Most suppliers; Kwik Fit/ ATS don’t have the tyre in stock so you will be waiting for a few days.
- If you get recovered to your home address, you will either need to get a mobile tyre replacement company to come out and fit a new tyre or pay for the movement of yours to a garage as Tesla Roadside will only move the car once and it must be within 50 miles.
- Finally price! Astronomical prices from everywhere, except Black Circles but delivery is long.

Future

- Im going to buy a spare tyre from Black Circles and keep it at home when I’m doing short journeys and take it with me during longer one. That way I know I’ll be able to get it fitted in a timely fashion and won’t be stranded somewhere in the country.

If your on 20's the tyre is the 'Pilot Sport EV 255/40 R20'. As far as I can tell BC does not stock this, but plenty do. Cheapest is about £248 delivered.

 

[thewishy]

I carry the compressor and some gel from my wifes car (We upgraded to a space server tyre). The gel is a hail mary at best, but depending on the type of damage, but if the screw / nail is still in the tyre, using the compressor might get you from a semi-flat tyre to something driveable with caution.

First puncture was a screw through the centre, repaired without much fuss. Second puncture was a screw through the sidewall. Decided to do both on the axle rather than have one at 4mm and one at 8mm, so there is a spare in the shed... (I figured 4mm and 8mm was probably fine, 2mm and 6mm less so...)

 

[Morpheus84]

If your on 20's the tyre is the 'Pilot Sport EV 255/40 R20'. As far as I can tell BC does not stock this, but plenty do. Cheapest is about £248 delivered.

Yeah it’s about £248 if you have time and can wait 5 days etc. If you need it asap and lack choice it’s around £300

 

[MovingSouth]

I took out my holts tyre spray and fired in the whole can and then drove c.20 mph to the nearest garage.

To have any hope of it working you have to follow the instructions carefully. They say you should put the foam in, roll the car a short distance, pump up the tyres, roll it again, and check they stay up before driving off. You don't say if you did this, but if you didn't get the tyres pumped up then the outcome was a given. The Tesla scheme is very weak (lots of threads on this) and we have separate breakdown insurance.

I've had the foam work on normal tyres but not tried with sound deadened tyres. We have (normal, non-sound deadened) Cross Climate 2s on our Model 3. I went for normal tyres for exactly this reason and we carry plugs as well as the foam, and a pump of course.

Having said that, we had a nail through a tyre in a car park on Wednesday. Fortunately, the nail stayed in (so luckier than you), we heard the click as the wheel rotated and the tyre pressure display showed a drop of 5 psi in a few miles. Pumped the tyre up and had the tyre repaired in an hour, after finding a tyre shop (we were 200 miles from home). A new CC2 would have been available the next day.

 

[Casss]

Yeah it’s about £248 if you have time and can wait 5 days etc. If you need it asap and lack choice it’s around £300

I'm guessing the £300 odd was including fitting and balancing too? In which case, nothing really out of the ordinary, they're big, premium tyres. Such is the cost of running a car with so many volt-ponies under the "hood".

 

[paul360m]

I hit a pothole last week & instantly loss pressure on my offside front in my MYP.......massive tear in the sidewall so going nowhere soon. Tesla recovery located a mobile tyre-fitter with a tyre in stock & arrivied within 2 hours to replace - £400 later I was on my way........not happy

 

[WllXM]

I hit a pothole last week & instantly loss pressure on my offside front in my MYP.......massive tear in the sidewall so going nowhere soon. Tesla recovery located a mobile tyre-fitter with a tyre in stock & arrivied within 2 hours to replace - £400 later I was on my way........not happy

Massive claims are being raised against borough councils in England (especially in London) for damages caused by potholes. If you can prove the pothole caused your flat tyre and have some incident report (or dashcam), they are fully liable for the damages & cost of repairs. Will surely take some time but worth the effort, especially when multiple reported potholes in certain boroughs can take months to be fixed.. When it will cost them several thousands in legal & insurance fees they might be more diligent in the future..

 

[Jason71]

I hit a pothole last week & instantly loss pressure on my offside front in my MYP.......massive tear in the sidewall so going nowhere soon. Tesla recovery located a mobile tyre-fitter with a tyre in stock & arrivied within 2 hours to replace - £400 later I was on my way........not happy

You are lucky it was just a tyre. Not sure if it has changed much but early M3P used to be infamous for destroying the wheels when you hit a pot hole. I remember Jason from The Engineering Explained Youtube channel managed to destroy both wheels and tyres on one side of his car on one pothole! cost him $2600!

The video has had 1.2million views though so I guess it worked out OK for him

 

[HenryT]

You are lucky it was just a tyre. Not sure if it has changed much but early M3P used to be infamous for destroying the wheels when you hit a pot hole. I remember Jason from The Engineering Explained Youtube channel managed to destroy both wheels and tyres on one side of his car on one pothole! cost him $2600!

The video has had 1.2million views though so I guess it worked out OK for him

Cracked rims were a known failing on 3 series BMWs - I went through three of them all down to potholes. 'watchdog' did a piece on it saying it was a design issue but I don't think anything came of it. Always my first thought (dread really) if I get a slow puncture.