Tire plugging

I've had plugs as recently as 10 years ago last the life of the tire. I don't think plugs are inherently more prone to failure than a patch, but a patch is certainly a better way of doing it since it covers a larger area - less pressure on the repair.

Discount Tire (if there is one near you) will patch a tire at no cost, provided the tire can be patched - the hole has to be a certain distance away from the sidewall, etc.

You do not have to purchase the tire from them for them to patch it. I'd imagine that with a trailer tire, you'd ideally want to take the wheel off the trailer and bring it to the store in your pickup or trunk.

They will also rotate your tires at no cost.

Fl. it is against the regs. to repair a sidewall in any way.

A few customers at the shop have plugs on their tires without any issue. The last one who brought his truck for installation of eagle wheels and brake job have a tire puncture on rear passenger tire which needs to be replaced. We usually recommend getting a new pair for the rears instead of getting one new tire.

ford truck guy wrote:
The preferred way is to break down the tire and install an umbrella patch ( patch-plug )from inside..

That is if the hole is farther than 1 inch from the sidewall.. Or so I am told by a couple of tire guys..

There was a time and place for plugs years ago, that's all we did at the station, ream out the hole, add a glue coated plug and send them on their way ! Then when done, we would all go get a drink from the water hose. :B

TIMES HAVE CHANGED

This answer

I've plugged holes in tires before with nary a problem. My truck tire with 80psi tires had a plug for about 2 years before it was replaced due to tread wear. Never lost any more air than the other 3 tires (normal atmospheric pressure loss). My wife's car has had a plug for about 4 years without a problem.

On a vehicle that has a TPMS system, I'm not worried about a plug. Like other's said, a failure of a plug is likely going to result in a slow leak. TPMS will show that.

Some of y'all make me laugh... yes a plugged tire could have a catastrophic failure... but a non plugged tire could have one too. If plugs were so inherently dangerous, they wouldn't be able to sell them anymore. If we are so scared about the minimal risk of danger, none of us would ever leave the security of our parent's basements...

ford truck guy wrote:
The preferred way is to break down the tire and install an umbrella patch ( patch-plug )from inside..

That is if the hole is farther than 1 inch from the sidewall.. Or so I am told by a couple of tire guys..

There was a time and place for plugs years ago, that's all we did at the station, ream out the hole, add a glue coated plug and send them on their way ! Then when done, we would all go get a drink from the water hose. :B

TIMES HAVE CHANGED

And we survived!!!:B I plugged a tire on my wife's car, too lazy to change it for the tiny spare, but got it properly patched asap. I have plugged in the past and run for many miles with no problem but it would only take one high speed failure to ruin my day. Simply not worth it.

I am not going to offer an opinion of my own, but this came up at an FMCA talk at one of the rallies in a session with Roger Marbles.

As several said up thread, the best way to repair an otherwise good tire is to do a minimum plug to keep environment out of the steel cord area and then do an internal patch for the air seal.

Yes, you can plug tires on agricultural machines, but they are not highway tires. They are a different animal. What did love was the way that they plugged the damage to a mine-haul truck (about 12' tall and 4'wide). A guy came from the maintenance shop with a cryo-bottle. He pulled a giant lag screw out of the boiling cryo-bottle and used a large air wrench to screw it into the puncture. The crew waited a little while and then sawed off the extra of the plug and put air back in the tire.

Matt

If plugs do fail they tend to be a very slow leak so you will have fair warning not major failure.

And yes I also plugged a few plugs put in by someone else that had a slow leak.

3oaks wrote:

ford truck guy wrote:
The preferred way is to break down the tire and install an umbrella patch ( patch-plug )from inside..

That is if the hole is farther than 1 inch from the sidewall.. Or so I am told by a couple of tire guys..

There was a time and place for plugs years ago, that's all we did at the station, ream out the hole, add a glue coated plug and send them on their way ! Then when done, we would all go get a drink from the water hose. :B

TIMES HAVE CHANGED

You got it!

Back in the '70s a lot of tires got plugged and lasted until the tire tread wore down where the tires needed replacing. Even had a 16" truck tire puncture where it needed two plugs side by side. Lasted for thousands of miles until the tire tread was worn out. ;)

X-2, plugged hundreds of tires in my lifetime, ran them till tread was completely gone, never a plug failure.
Seems like people are paranoid about everything now days, I suspect that this "no plugging thing" came as the result of someone plugging a tire incorrectly & had a problem, therefore ALL plugging Must be bad. Just like most rules & regulations, come about because someone screwed up. :S

ford truck guy wrote:
The preferred way is to break down the tire and install an umbrella patch ( patch-plug )from inside..

That is if the hole is farther than 1 inch from the sidewall.. Or so I am told by a couple of tire guys..

There was a time and place for plugs years ago, that's all we did at the station, ream out the hole, add a glue coated plug and send them on their way ! Then when done, we would all go get a drink from the water hose. :B

TIMES HAVE CHANGED

You got it!

Back in the '70s a lot of tires got plugged and lasted until the tire tread wore down where the tires needed replacing. Even had a 16" truck tire puncture where it needed two plugs side by side. Lasted for thousands of miles until the tire tread was worn out. ;)