Sunday, Jul 24, 2016 at 12:34
Rich, your potential tyre fix will probably be governed by three main problems we have in Australia today ...
1. The numbers of people with the skills to do repairs such as this, is declining rapidly. No-one wants to get their hands dirty any more, and tyre repairs are hard, dirty work. The tyre industry isn't alone with this angle.
2. With the current cost of everything done locally, it's entirely likely a proper repair of the nail hole will equal the value of the tyre.
On that basis, it may be simply declared an uneconomic repair, by a tyre business that has high overheads.
3. The lawyer-driven abject fear of being sued until you have nothing left, if your repair fails - for any reason whatsoever.
I could write pages on why this lawyer-driven part of our society is such a burden on the nations productivity and inventiveness - but I won't.
Suffice to say, it will probably feature in many repairers decision-making processes as to whether they even consider doing the repair.
To expand on the damage and the repair process, let's look at what tyre repair is designed to achieve.
1. A patch or plug repair is designed to just simply stop air leaking from the tyre. A patch or plug does nothing as regards re-bonding holed rubber. The small hole in the rubber stays there, because it's deemed not to be a problem, and it will not progress to something larger and more dangerous.
2. A vulcanised tyre repair is designed to not only stop the air leaking from the tyre - it is also designed to rebond torn rubber that has exposed rayon plies or belts, and to give full, original conformity to the tyre.
This repair is also designed to prevent the ingress of moisture, salt, chemicals and abrasives from the road surface, into the tyre piles and steel belts - where the said contaminants can cause damage and corrosion to the rayon, nylon or kevlar plies - or corrosion to the steel wires in the tread belts.
A professional tyre repairer examines tyre damage carefully. He examines how the damage has penetrated the casing - whether the damaging object has just simply gone straight through at right angles, or whether the object has gone through at a steep angle and damaged more of the casing than is immediately visible.
Numerous times, a cut or tear in a tyre will have to be buffed back to find the limits of the cut or tear.
If the cut or tear reaches to the section where the tread meets the wall, or nearly to the bead - the tyre is deemed unrepairable.
A professional tyre repairer will examine the inside and the outside of the tyre casing carefully - looking for visible wrinkling lines, that indicates the tyre has been run flat for a substantial distance, which has caused major casing damage, and made the tyre unrepairable.
He will also look for bruising of the casing, where a tyre has received a major blow from a
rock or other hard item such as concrete kerbs or other projections, that has seriously damaged the casing, and broken plies or de-laminated them.
In the case of finding serious and damaging bruises (usually indicated by a slight bubble), the tyre will be deemed unrepairable.
The repairer will also examine whether there are broken plies in the wall, or fractured wires in the belts, and how many of them.
A couple of broken plies in the wall is still deemed as repairable, multiple broken plies is not. Fractured wires in steel belts, deem the tyre unrepairable.
As to the major worry of blowouts - let's examine them.
Blowouts are pretty rare in todays world. Blowouts are almost never caused by faulty repairs or dodgy patches on big holes.
Blowouts are caused by ...
1. Overloading the tyre
2. Impact damage from a solid large object (either immediate or delayed, depending on severity of the impact)
3. A massive cut that causes rapid air loss
4. An unnoticed small
puncture that allows the tyre to slowly lose air over time, until it fails due to major heat build up and casing delamination.
I have had numerous blowouts, and most at high speed. I can tell you from personal experience, the single greatest chance of getting a blowout is from driving at speed on dirt roads that have recently been maintenance graded.
Maintenance grading brings trash, rocks and sharp sticks from the edges of the road formation, back into the centre and in the main tyre track ruts of the road - and buries them there.
A good maintenance
grader driver will attempt to minimise this problem by carrying out multiple passes with the
grader moldboard set on a steep angle to ensure the damaging trash, rocks and sticks is sieved out of the gravel and relocated to the road edges.
However, many maintenance
grader drivers are careless, in a hurry to cover ground, and care little about the amount of trash they leave in the formation when doing road maintenance.
As a result, if you come across very recent dirt road maintenance, it pays to reduce speed substantially, and be very aware that there is likely to be tyre-damaging trash, rocks and sticks buried in the fresh, smooth road surface.
Cheers, Ron.
AnswerID:
602749
Follow Up By: Member - Rich - Sunday, Jul 24, 2016 at 13:04
Sunday, Jul 24, 2016 at 13:04
Ron
You raise some good points.
There is no point me driving 300km to find some one to fix it.
If not local then may as
well get a new one. Being in the ACT where they typically have restrictions and controls on everything I suspect my chances of finding some one is low.
Over the next few months I do plan a few trips to
Sydney and Bridbane way. May even go to
birdsville.
I may take the tyre with me and see as having a second spare on that trip would be good idea as they are 19". I would only require it if I had two punctures. This can happen I guess. So can three and if you had 3 you would plug the tyre no matter where the hole was to get you out.
In the mean time it is a chance for me to get some experience in putting in plugs so may just put one in and see how it holds up.
Richard
Richard
FollowupID:
872385
Follow Up By: Bob Y. - Qld - Sunday, Jul 24, 2016 at 13:50
Sunday, Jul 24, 2016 at 13:50
If you happen to pass through
Winton, I'll give you a hand to repair it, Richard.
Done plenty of similar repairs, and in most cases(is that a pun?) the tyre has gone full distance.
Bob
FollowupID:
872386
Follow Up By: Member - Rich - Sunday, Jul 24, 2016 at 13:59
Sunday, Jul 24, 2016 at 13:59
Bob
Ya never know. Many thanks for the offer.
We were in
Winton last year. Enjoyed our time.
We were going to go further north to
Kakadu and Gulf Country but have left it to late as we can't go until mid October. May be next year.
But still could go your way as more to see. Chase a few more dinosaurs.
We are kicking around options now.
The annoying thing is when I to get new tyres early in the year I got six and an extra rim for trips like that. Having potentially destroyed one driving around
my home is just a pain. If I did it on the road I would have at least felt better about it ??
Richard
FollowupID:
872388