Repairs to tyres with sidewall damage

Yep I've had several sidewall damaged tyres repaired. Took em to me local tyre shop (Diffens) and he sends them off. The repair jobs have never been a problem and I put them front or rear and again has never been a problem.

Me too - had 3 repaired after our CSR trip a couple of years ago. Local TyrePower sent them off. Cost about $35 each and no problems whatever. And this was after I plugged them to keep them going.

Cheers
Gerry

Sounds like a plan, I wonder if they could repair this one for me.

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Hmmm, $35 sounds like a bargain. I'd give 'em more just to see the result of their work on this one!


Regards,
Sly

There are australian standards on tyre repair and they are called up by most states. haven't checked WA.

Sidewall repairs on radials are specifically outlawed by the standard and as I understand this came about due to:
The number of failures of repairs and
The sidewall works so hard that "its a matter of when not if". Quote from one of my instructors.

The info came from the tyre industry and VicRoads

VSI 16 tyre repairs

The other question is where to put the tyre you are worried about.

Testing has shown that the least unsafe place is to put the suspect tyre on the front. If it goes flat (or disitegrates) you develop a massive understeerr problem and difficulty with braking but the vehicle "tends" to go in a straight line while slowing down. You will still have some steering and braking control even if it is compromised.
If a rear tyre goes flat or disintegrates there is a much greater risk of loss of directional stability that can lead to oversteer then wheel dig in and rollover. The loss of directional stability is much faster when a rear goes down as the vehicle is suddenly effectively steering from the rear.

Directional stability is one of the reasons that vehicles have designed in understeer. It is also regarded as safer to hit things head on rather than sideways or rollover because the safety systems are designed that way.

Peter Wherret RIP demonstrated this years ago on his TV show when they used a system that blew a hole in the side wall of the tyre while it was being driven around a corner. They did it for each tyre position to demonstrate the effect and even the test driver couldn't catch the slide caused by the ouside rear being blown.

Of course the stability issue doesn't play as big a role when the vehicle is traveling in a straight line as it does when cornerring. Worst case scenarion is a blowout on the outside rear while cornering hard at speed.

One of the reasons that tubeless tyres are safer that tubes is that they usually go down relatively slowly when punctured whereas tubes lose the pressure very rapidly. (Of course this doesn't account for rocks taking out sidewalls)

What does it all mean?

best tyres on the rear for stability.
Save your repaired tyres for true offroad or low speed work so that if (when?) it fails you are going slowly enough for it not to cause problems.
If you do get caught by the cops with repaired sidewalls don't be surprised if they ground you.

regards

A

Thanks for the info, this one is used as the 2nd spare tyre for my off road trailer, so I'll be getting it repaired now. It still holds air pressure, but for the cost of what you have said here it's worth getting it fixed.

Cooper STT285/75/16