Yesterday, as I always run Fobo Tire, I noticed a slow pressure decline in the left rear tire, about four pounds overnight. This afternoon, when driving around my neighborhood I heard a repetitive clicking sound coming from the front of the car. I pulled over immediately and found a large one inch machine bolt embedded in the right front tire. No air loss but a very dangerous situation.
Instead of calling Tesla I headed straight for Wise Automotive, which does all of my tire and alignment work. I have a very good relationship with them and it paid off today. The put my car on a lift immediately and in about 30 minutes removed the offending bolt and patched the rather large hole in made in the tire tread. As I have foam lined Michelin Pilot Sport 21's on the car they had to peel back a patch of the foam to patch the hole but when they were finished you wouldn't have known they had even touched the tire. Then they removed the rear tire with the slow leak and found a broken self tapping screw embeded in the tread. It was the source of the slow leak. They pulled the screw out of the tread and plugged it. Fantastic work!
I took some photos of the damage.
The machine bolt protruding from the tire.
The offending machine bolt
The self tapping screw that was embedded in the rear tire tread.
The plug repair to the rear tread (this is actually leather twisted together that's pluged into the hold in the tire.
All of this took about 90 minutes. Moral of the story? Monitor your tires pressures every day and also develop a strong relationship with a local shop of quality. If I had relied on Tesla Service for these repairs, as good as my SC is, it would have been at least a day before the tires were repaired.
Instead of calling Tesla I headed straight for Wise Automotive, which does all of my tire and alignment work. I have a very good relationship with them and it paid off today. The put my car on a lift immediately and in about 30 minutes removed the offending bolt and patched the rather large hole in made in the tire tread. As I have foam lined Michelin Pilot Sport 21's on the car they had to peel back a patch of the foam to patch the hole but when they were finished you wouldn't have known they had even touched the tire. Then they removed the rear tire with the slow leak and found a broken self tapping screw embeded in the tread. It was the source of the slow leak. They pulled the screw out of the tread and plugged it. Fantastic work!
I took some photos of the damage.
The machine bolt protruding from the tire.
The offending machine bolt
The self tapping screw that was embedded in the rear tire tread.
The plug repair to the rear tread (this is actually leather twisted together that's pluged into the hold in the tire.
All of this took about 90 minutes. Moral of the story? Monitor your tires pressures every day and also develop a strong relationship with a local shop of quality. If I had relied on Tesla Service for these repairs, as good as my SC is, it would have been at least a day before the tires were repaired.
