Tip a wheel onto its side at two in the morning and every so often a small puddle runs out and catches the lamp. It is water, and it has usually been in there for months. There are two normal ways it gets in. One is an old repair pushed in from the outside that never properly sealed, leaving a channel through the tread that lets moisture down to the belts. The other is a can of sealant, emptied into the tyre through the valve at some point and then forgotten about.
The can is not a scandal. It does what it was sold to do, which is get somebody home. What it also does is coat the inner liner with a film that no patch will bond to, and hold moisture against the steel belt ends where rust starts. Water is heavier than air and it will not stay put. At low speed it pools at the bottom of the tyre and gives you an odd, slow wobble that fades as you speed up and the water flings itself out into a ring. That symptom sends people to the wrong conclusion more often than any other. The tyre has to come off the rim, be washed out and dried and then looked at inside before anybody can say honestly whether it can be repaired.
The call might come from Kennington Cross at midnight or from Kennington at six on a Sunday morning. If you are stopped on Kennington Park Road in the dark, say so when you call and we will prioritise it. Nothing is towed out of Vauxhall or the Cleaver Square area; the work finishes there. Pressures set before we leave the Cleaver Square area, and the same on Camberwell New Road.
24-hour tyre callout in Kennington is part of our wider 24-hour emergency callout cover. For 24-hour tyre callout in Kennington, call 07717 389637 or ask us for a quote.
Most cars sold in the last decade or so carry a sealant can rather than a spare wheel, so on the permit streets around Cleaver Square there are a good many tyres quietly holding the residue of a bad night from years ago. Nobody thinks to mention it when they ring, and it is the single most useful thing you can tell us before we start. Our answer may still be a repair. It will at least be an answer based on what is really in there.
A wheel broken down on a night call near Kennington Cross let out a surprising amount of water when it was turned over. The old repair in the tread had been letting it in since long before the current owner had the car.
A driver described a shake at walking pace that disappeared by the time they reached the main road. Everything had been checked except the possibility that there was something liquid inside the tyre.
A tyre that had been treated with a can the previous winter had a slick coating over the whole inside. Nothing bonds to that, so it had to be scrubbed back to clean rubber before a patch could go anywhere near it.
Through a channel left by a repair that was never sealed properly, through a small injury nobody noticed, or in with the contents of a sealant can. Once it is in, it stays, and it sits against the steel belt ends where corrosion does the damage rather than the water itself.
Possibly, but not until it has been cleaned out and inspected properly. The film has to come off the liner for a patch to bond, and we need to see whether the belts have started to rust. If they have, the tyre is finished and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
Because water pools at the bottom of a slowly turning tyre and makes it heavy on one side. As the speed rises it is thrown outward into an even ring and the imbalance largely disappears. A wobble that improves as you go faster is unusual, and worth mentioning when you call.
Yes. We break the tyre away from the rim beside the car and inspect the inside under our own lamps, which is when water and rust staining are actually easier to spot than they are in daylight. We work every night of the year across SE11.
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