How long will she hold?

The proper repair would be the mushroom plugs installed from the INSIDE thru a drilled hole of a set diameter, but I'll join others in saying I'd consider the speed rating "VOID" at that point for any duty higher than grocery store trips....

You compare the cost of the tires to the cost of the replacement vehicle.....

Those 'push in" leathers are for desperate back country road use only...

 

If it wasn't for plugs some of my cars wouldn't of had much tire.

I wouldn't think twice about it unless your were tracking etc.

 

Worth the $25 to have it patched on the inside and rebalanced. Lasts forever. I had a plug leak once! Never again.
John

 

Yep they are the ones/wear indicators. In Australia if you wear your tyres down so the thread is even with the little bar between the threads then your tyre is no longer road worthy and if you have an accident and they are worn to this point then the insurer can refuse payout due to onroadworthy vehicle. Most insurance policies here insist that the vehicle is roadworthy to be insured.

 

Now there is a refreshing idea.

The layers of rubber and cord have been delaminated when a bolt was crammed into the tire. Now ram a reamer through the hole and cut a few more of the belt threads to boot and then cram in a strip of sticky rubber and thats a fix?!

Tex and Daniel stated it properly, its good enough to get to the tire store. Patching (from the inside only) a small nail hole that went straight into the center most part of the tread MIGHT present an arguement but surely not this case let alone a car that is used as it was designed to be.

Luca Pass, director of Ricambi's Quality Control dept., would have no part of this type of thing if presented the facts and risks. Some folks have to think a little harder of areas to control costs. This isnt the place when lives depend on it.

Dave

 

I bought four of them from TireRack for my 348 and it only cost me $298, since it was close out special. Very nice tires, incredible grip on the road. I would buy them again if they were available.

 

Yes, it's not just in Australia that they realise what the wear bars are for. I fail to see the correlation between letting a bit of air out of the other three tyres and then your tyres being illegal after 10 miles, as stated in your original post. If anything, an underinflated tyre will damage the sidewall before the tread depth.

 

Just a quick update.... the car is still sitting in the garage with a fully inflated tire.

Mrs. JRR said "Don't even pretend to put Luca in that car for morning donuts until the tire is replaced." I knew I shouldn't have bragged about my repair skills and shown here the size of that bolt.

Since the Avons are NLA, it looks like I'm going with new rubber on all 4 corners.

 

I made a couple of calls this AM

 

I'll wager the tire that suffered the puncture in the photograph was the rear tire. Years ago I had a similar tire puncture and the guy in the tire shop says he sees them all the time in the rears. He thought the front tire ran over the object and "set it up" to puncture the rear.
It seemed reasonable as he has more experience than I.

 

Daniel, hey thanks man, I've been looking all over for that screw.

 

I do a lot of 4-wheeling in a Jeep. My personal record is 22 plugs in a hole in a sidewall. Worked for the weekend, but I didn't risk it for long after that. Once I had a piece of cactus (a stick, actually) thru a sidewall til the tire wore out. It never leaked, but I must have had 100 people point it out to me. So when somebody says "you can't plug a hole in the sidewall", I smile, agree, and plug it anyway! 'Course, the Jeep won't go over 70. Tire plugs work!

 

I plugged a rear on our C5 Z06...it was right on the margin of being maybe tread, maybe sidewall. Strict rules were 60 mph until we got a new pair of rears. This is the performance type, not the runflat.

It made it about 1500 miles (my stepson was a little slow getting around to the tire store) and separated tread to sidewall in a long tear last week.

 

That plug will hold until the tire treads wears out.

When I was just out of high school I worked at a gas station that still had a service bay. Shoot, they even still sold LEADED gasoline, and had the "Full Service" line at the pump. Anyway, we used to plug loads of tires, and I don't ever recall having one come back. We actually had the burn-on patches. MAN those things were the bee's knees!!! Though we did have to dismount the tire in order the apply them from the inside. Too bad you can't find the burn-on's any more. The only rule we had was "no plugging the side wall". So long as the the puncture was within the treads we would plug it. If the puncture was on the outer edge of the treads it would get patched from the inside. If the puncture was completely on the side wall they we SOL and had to buy a new tire. The side wall of the tire WILL FAIL. It may hold for a little bit but it will fail.

Someone earlier said that you find all kinds of weird things in the tires. I think the craziest thing we ever pulled out of a tire was screw driver that had gone all the way inside the tire. It wasn't sticking out, the whole thing had gone completely inside the tire. Need less to say that was no patch job on that one. The guy had to buy a new tire, and yes that was back in the day when gas stations use to sell tires.

Anyway I wouldn't worry about the plugged tire Daniel-San. Especially since you plugged it on the tread. Though your tires do look like you are gonna need some new one's here pretty soon. I would just drive it until I bought a new set of tires. Just no 100mph+ runs. But that is just me.

 

Out of curiosity, how does the tire plug work? I remember something from chemistry or physics class in high school about vulcanized rubber reforming around the plug. Anyone have a simple explanation of how it works?

 

I came up empty as well.

 

As you have found out, the rubber they use for the plug is really soft and sticky. Anyway in a nut shell what happens is that the rubber gets "welded" together. It does this when the tire temp gets to 170/deg F, which tires get to while driving, especially on a hot summers day in the 100deg+ temps. The road surfaces easily can get to over 135/deg F, and then add in the friction the tire makes driving on that hot surface = 170/deg F tire temps and the plug "welding" to the tire rubber.

For a more scientific explanation read this ---->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanization

 

Sorry rusty bits I don't remember typing "10 miles down to the cords" this must have been picked up by a glitch somewhere. What I was saying was that the wear indicators which are the depth of a match head are used as an indication of roadworthiness. if the fun police pull you over and they check your tyres and they are worn even with the wear indicators then they are happy to write you a ticket and order you off the road. Thankfully they are not that investigative but it is worth noting the uninsured point of not being street legal.

 

Just an update...

Long holiday weekend

+

Restless 3-year old

+

New frozen custard place in town

+

nice weather

=

We just had to give it a try.... and much to my amazement (and the chagrin of Mrs. JRR) the tire held air all the way to the custard stand and back. It's about 15 miles round trip, and no issues. I guess it's good to hold air now until the next ice age, right???

Actually, I'm just waiting for ferrarioldman to pick/buy something and beckon my car to Sport Auto.

 

Ive put in a lot of plugs, both professionally and for my own use. Several boxes full; ie 100's.

Ive never seen one fail, or a tire fail because it was punctured and repaired with an external plug.

If the hole is so large you need more than two plugs the story changes. But....

I do not believe one or two plugs is worth throwing away a tire that is otherwise useable.

I do not believe one or two plugs needs to necessarily negate the tires speed rating. The tires today are lightyears better than what was available in the 60's and before, and people drove well over 100 back then without slaughtering everyone. Mercedes was winning races on dirt roads in the early 1900's at speed near 100 mph on tires that were patched by the roadside. I believe we have a bit better tires and equipment today.

All of the above assumes the puncture is squarely in the tread, not in the edge and cartainly not in the sidewall.

The tire isnt going to magically self destruct or explode because you pushed a plug into the tread, tires are a lot toyugher than that. I would be more concerened about the unseen damage curbs and rocks do to tires than the minor damage from a small puncture thats been plugged.