Slow leak tire

Do not use slime. Do not use a plug by itself. Have the tire removed and patch/plugged.

 

If it was my tire, I would plug it. People relate the most to their own personal experience. I have had great success the few times I have used plugs in a tire, as long as the puncture is small, it is not close to the sidewall, and a good repair can be accomplished. While racing, I got a small puncture in a racing tire. Because of the size/circumference/stagger needed for the race car, I did not immediately have a suitable replacement tire. I plugged the puncture. So.... I have personally driven on an oval race track, in an alcohol fueled NASCAR Modified, and dove into the turns going 123 mph using a plugged rear tire. Worked fine. Just sayin......

 

Agreed.

 

To TwoUnderPar with respects and as to your edit. There are limited times when a plug alone is sufficient as a temporary fix, but should never be used solely as a permanently repair on a daily driver. It has been done in the past and is sometimes successful, however this is not the best, safest or industry standard solution for modern street tires. Reputable quality shops will not do it. sLick415 just pay the tire shop the $20 or whatever and be done with it.

 

I did a plug repair on a very similar location, judging from the pic: looks to be near the corner. It was a small diameter nail. Post repair, the wheel sat in the garage through winter, held air fine. Has been back on the car for about 500 km now, and still fine. That said, I've heard concerns about punctures near the tread edge like this, so watching it closely.

FWIW I used a BlackJack Tire Repair Kit

 

That's really near the side wall, since the hole is pretty small, I would recommend you take out the tire and patch it instead of plugging it. I know most auto place won't patch it if its too close to the side walls due to liability issues. But if you want, you can make the hole bigger and then plug it. Thats my option if I do it myself since patching require you to take off the tire and remount it afterwards.

Here's a video of me plugging the tire with a kit I got from the auto store.

 

Respectfully speaking sLick415, if you had to ask, do yourself a favor take it to a tire shop.

 

Have you done it ??

I had about 5-6 nails/screw etc in the last 4 years

In my area it cost less than $20 with tax and they rebalance the the wheel before mounting ...

Depending how busy the shop it could take 20-45 minutes (the job is about 10-12 minutes including lifting the car and all).

Really worth the money if you do it wrong you could make more damage a lot more than $20 dollar...

I do what I can do better, I am trained to do (fixing tire is not) and use the money to pay others for things they can do better. Works just fine for me.


But it is your car your tire of course.

 

Well I do not understand you actually asked the question no ?

And now you do not like some of the answer .... not everyone thinks that is a good idea "learning" this by your own. And as it turns out noone agreed with the "Anyway, I figured a leak that small would best be fixed with some slime." Go figure.

 

A tire shop might not want a patch repair from the inside, with it being that close to the corner. At least that was my experience. And a plug repair is a relatively easy DIY, so I went that route.

There may just be a good reason for not patching, by any method, that close to the corner, but I thought give it a try. The nail in my tire was very slim. The plug repair kit I got (see above) comes with 2 diameters of plugs. I used the smaller, worked carefully, followed all the steps, and it seems just fine.

I purposely pulled our snows and put the (patched) all season back on a bit early, just in case there was a problem, I could resort to putting the snows back on for a bit.

And I noted above, no problems, holding air fine.

 

I wouldn't recommend pulling out the tire if you don't have a tire remover machine. I've done quite a few patches myself when I was working at Toyota on the Prius, and even then, I broke one TPMS sensor. Which costed around 50-70$. I've never removed my own tire without a machine. Since your tire puncture is really near the sidewall. Dealers or autoshops won't repair it since its a liability issues. I would suggest you get a plug kit, then drill the hole bigger so the plug would fit through it without taking the tire off of your rims. That is the easiest suggestions I can recommend.

But if you really want to learn how to do it yourself by taking the tire out, by all means do it since you'll be the one replacing anything that you break. And yes, the TPMS will be in the way and to remove it, its hold on by a 10mm bolt. Good luck and let me know how it went

I took the easy route in the video and just plug it myself like I just told you. Costed less than 10$ for the kit at the autostore.

 

Wow! Sorry to have wasted both our time. Go for it, REALLY. Be sure and add your video experience here and to youtube. We all need a good laugh once in a while. Clear all actives, ya'll have a good night.

 

WOW! This subject was not very helpful at all.