Flat tire repair vs weigth savings techiques

[redpoint5]

I'll check. Last donut I used was on a 1996 Subaru Legacy. All other vehicles I've either repaired immediately with a tire plug (common), or had full sized spares (Jeep when someone shot my tire with a 9mm bullet).

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Last donut I used was on a 1996 Subaru Legacy. All other vehicles I've either repaired immediately with a tire plug (common), or had full sized spares (Jeep when someone shot my tire with a 9mm bullet).

I have never used donut spares or plugs. Besides some imports and the earlier water-cooled Volkswagen Saveiro, donut spares were not so common in my country until more recently, but anyway it's not so unusual to see cars originally provided with a donut spare to have it replaced with a full-size one.

[MeteorGray]

A spare tire is worth its weight when on the road.

I like full-size spares, but many cars don't come with them nowadays. My Mazda is an example, coming from the factory with a donut. However, I consider use of the donut as my last resort. My first line of defense against flats when I don't have a full-size spare is the Viair 400 12vdc air compressor and a big pack of plugs that I take on all trips.

The other day I was rolling through Baton Rouge in my Mazda3 and the low-tire alarm went off. I pulled into the first convenient spot, a grocery/filling station, and found a nail in one of the tires. I was 100 miles from home, so the donut was not capable of getting me there, and I sure didn't want to look for a facility that could fix the flat in unfamiliar territory, so out comes the Viair compressor and plugs.

In maybe 20 minutes or so, I had the plug in and was on my way home.

Although the pros say it ain't so, I consider plugs to be permanent fixes. In the dozens I've used through the years, I've never had a plug fail. I remember having one that developed a slow leak, but it was slow enough to not be a problem until the tire was replaced. None of the other plugs leaked or gave any hint of problem whatsoever, even those I had to double-up due to oversized holes. It's amazing to me.

On one tire I plugged a hole that was just about between the sidewall and the tread, which is not recommended to do but sometimes you just got to do what you got to do in order to get home. To my surprise, it worked for the rest of the life of the tire. I was lucky.

Leaving home without a spare and without flat-fixing measures to gain a theoretical but unmeasurable fuel savings is not something I would consider doing.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by MeteorGray

A spare tire is worth its weight when on the road.

Even in town, having a spare may save time instead of waiting for assistence when you're in a rush.

Although the pros say it ain't so, I consider plugs to be permanent fixes.

A friend of mine used to own a small tyre shop, and I remember seeing him fixing used tyres with plugs, but he also applied some sort of glue to them in order to make the fix look more permanent.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

A friend of mine used to own a small tyre shop, and I remember seeing him fixing used tyres with plugs, but he also applied some sort of glue to them in order to make the fix look more permanent.

All the cheap plug kits I've purchased come with cement that you coat the plugs with before inserting.

My double plug repair held the 1 day it needed to before I got new tires. I'd have driven it the full lifetime of the tire if I hadn't already scheduled to replace them. Perhaps it would fail, but it wouldn't be a big deal. I suspect it would have held up though.

I'd probably detect a 10 PSI drop in pressure just in normal driving.

[MeteorGray]

The plugs I buy (from Walmart etc) don't come with separate cement, but they are sticky and "mushy" enough so that they do not need anything else to work. At least, they work for me. At least, so far :-0

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

The plugs I have seen my friend using didn't seem to be sticky enough. They actually had some glue on them, but it was too weak.

[Vekke]

Some new solutions on the market:
https://www.tyroola.com.au/blog/self...of-the-future/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfI7T0q-fXw

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

I remember when Honda resorted to "tuff-up" self-sealing tubes for the Honda CG 125, but I have never seen a self-sealing tyre.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by MeteorGray

The plugs I buy (from Walmart etc) don't come with separate cement, but they are sticky and "mushy" enough so that they do not need anything else to work. At least, they work for me. At least, so far :-0

I just bought the Walmart one today too, after being astounded by the 1.99 price. I was debating the rubber cement Slime Deluxe kit or a separate pack of rubber cement, but I remember going to a tire shop and they didn't use rubber cement, and a bunch of the other kits also didn't have rubber cement, so I figured it just needs to sort of hold air to get to the tire shop for a patch.

The Slime Deluxe kit was 5.49 which is also an astounding deal, but I felt like the ginormous handles are kind of bulky and harder to stuff into a corner of the trunk.

Hopefully I'll never have to use it, but peace of mind, yay.