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Screw in Tire - repairable?

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JPUConn

Active Member
Aug 11, 2014
1,312
663
CT
Found this bugger in my tread today while putting on some red T centercap decals. My concern is that it's too close to the sidewall and I'll need to buy one new tire.

Planning on bringing the wheel/tire to townfair tire tomorrow when they open to see if it can be patched.


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Will be rocking one winter tire until this gets fixed (10/32 tread on each set)

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On the plus side the red T sticker looks great and was easy to install when not on the car

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I've noticed that tire shops seem to want to replace anything that is even CLOSE to the sidewall these days. I suspect it is more motivated by the desire to sell a tire than any safety/liability concern (although the latter might factor in a bit). It is exactly this type of puncture that has me plugging my own tires after two "questionable" replacements in recent years.

My bet - they will eyeball it for 2.7 seconds and tell you "has to be replaced"... happy to be proven wrong.
 
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Shops may be hesitant because of the speed rating of the tire, but unless you corner very hard or otherwise push your tires to their limits, you can probably plug that yourself and have it hold. I can't tell from the photo but when you remove it, just check the angle and length of the screw and try to deduce whether it may have partially punctured the inner sidewall. Seems unlikely but if so it's probably not worth the risk. Otherwise I would plug it.
 
If you are really lucky and have been living right, it may not be all the way through. I had one recently like that and it was barely into the tread.

Of course you don't really know until you back it out, and you might wait to do that after you drive to the tire shop.
 
Tire shop manager was helpful. He shared the below related to not patching outside of the center tread. He did offer names of local garages as well as DIY for plugging but he could not legally do it at this shop.

Due to the location/angle of the screw and chance of it having impacted the sidewall I opted for a new tire.

$165 later including balancing isn't the end of the world. Just a shame to throw away a tire with 10/32 tread.

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This has happened to me twice. Once with a Jaguar XK-8 when the screw found my tire when I had travelled precisely 3/4 mile from the dealership with 11 miles on the car. That one really hurt because the screw was deep and damaged the sidewall also. On my Tesla a string of nails penetrated the entire width of the tire when I stupidly parked at a Home Depot.
I err on the side of caution and replace the tire, and would always do so with high performance tires that are less tolerant of weight and structural imbalance than are other tires, even more so when their are fairly high pressure low rolling resistance types.

If it were a beater used only for local errands I probably would do a plug. On a Tesla--never!
 
I would have plugged it, as they say, in ten minutes in my garage. I have full confidence it would have lasted the life of the tire. All that advertisement stuff from the tire company is almost purely to sell tires, and in my area, no tire company will plug a tire, "for safety reasons".

I have been plugging tires for my business and personal cars for 50 years. Never had a plug go bad. Some holes were so large (screwdriver) that it took two plugs. A leaking plug is a rarity, but is easily fixed (add another plug) and they don't catastrophically fail. You have pressure warnings on the Tesla, so you would never be caught. We never put a patch on the inside, ever! But some enterprising tire company figured out that that was something you couldn't do, so it became the new way to "safely" protect your tire. I say unnecessary.

I truly hope that your courage will take over next time and that you will at least try a plug, and become confident that it's mainly the tire company's desire to make a bunch more money off you. That's not bad, it's just business. But you don't have to contribute.