There is a moment in fitting a tyre when it makes a noise like a door slamming. That is the bead seating: the tyre is inflated until both of its edges pop outward and lock onto the seats machined into the rim, and it happens suddenly because it has to. Until that instant the tyre is neither sealed nor located. Afterwards it is doing both. It is loud, it is completely normal, and at half past one in the morning in an enclosed space it can sound alarming if nobody has mentioned it first.
So we mention it. It is also why the wheel gets cleaned before anything goes on. If the bead seats are corroded or dirty the tyre will either refuse to seat properly or seat unevenly, which turns up later as a slow leak or a vibration nobody can trace. Cleaning those seats back to sound metal is thoroughly unglamorous and it is the part that decides whether the tyre holds air for the next four years. All of it happens where the car is parked, in an estate bay or a permit space, at whatever hour you needed us.
Ten past six on a Sunday morning is a strange time to need a tyre and a very ordinary time for us. That holds on Old Street as much as on a residential street. Old tyres leave Aldersgate Street, Beech Street and EC1A with us, every time. You watch it happen in Whitecross Street, or at the kerb in Golden Lane Estate.
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Estate parking around Golden Lane and Fann Street sits close to a lot of people's windows, which makes it worth saying that this is a quiet job apart from one bang lasting a fraction of a second. We do not use an air gun, for the same reason. The car stays in its bay, the work happens beside it, and the space you waited for is still yours in the morning. We are out across EC1Y and EC2Y around the clock.
A late job in an estate bay on Golden Lane with the driver standing nearby. Telling somebody what is about to happen is the difference between a noise and a fright.
A wheel off near Whitecross Street had corrosion on the bead seat from years of winter salt. Cleaning it back is what stopped the new tyre leaking slowly for months afterwards.
A tyre that had not seated evenly showed up as a wobble on the balancer. It came off, went back on properly, and the problem never reached the road.
The bead seating. The tyre is inflated until both edges snap outward onto the machined seats on the rim, and it happens all at once. It is a normal part of fitting any tyre and it sounds far more dramatic than it is.
It is one noise lasting a fraction of a second, which is a good deal less than running an air gun would be. The rest of the job is quiet. In an enclosed bay we will say when it is coming so nobody jumps.
Because a corroded or dirty bead seat stops the tyre locating properly. That gives you either a slow leak appearing weeks later or a vibration nobody can find. Cleaning the seat is what makes the seal reliable.
Every night of the year. The car stays in its bay, the job is quiet apart from that single moment, and typical arrival across EC1Y and EC2Y is 30 to 60 minutes.
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