A valve core is a spring-loaded plunger about the size of a matchstick head, screwed into the middle of the valve stem, and it is the smallest part on the car by a distance. It is also a very common overnight leak. Grit on its seat or a perished seal lets a trickle past all night, and you come out to a tyre that was firm when you parked.
The giveaway is that there is nothing in the tread. No nail, no screw, no damage anywhere, and a tyre that went down in eight hours rather than eight minutes. A drop of soapy water on the open valve settles it. If it blows a bubble, the core is the leak.
It takes a minute with a core tool and does not need the tyre off the rim, which is why it is worth ringing at five in the morning rather than pumping up and hoping. Pressure sensors complicate things, since those valves have metal stems with their own seals and corrode where they pass through the rim. Those get renewed as a unit.
A 24-hour service is only worth anything if somebody actually sets off. Ours does. Whether it is the middle of the night on Roehampton Lane or first thing on a Sunday with the car sat outside the house in West Putney, the phone gets answered, a fully-equipped van is dispatched and the tyre is repaired or replaced where the car is standing. Weekends and bank holidays included, 365 days a year, for cars, SUVs and 4x4s. We cover SW15 at every hour on the clock, and you get a live ETA when the van sets off, so an unsociable hour at least comes with a number attached.
24-hour tyre callout in Putney is part of our wider 24-hour emergency callout across London and the home counties cover. For 24-hour tyre callout in Putney, call 07717 389637 or send us your details for a price.
Most of what we come out to in the small hours around here is an overnight loss: driveways in West Putney, permit streets off the High Street, cars parked up towards Putney Vale. The vehicle has stood still all night, so nothing has been driven on and nothing has been ruined. A valve is usually the smallest possible ending to it.
A driver off Lower Richmond Road had pumped the same tyre up three mornings running and could find nothing wrong with it. The core was weeping. It took longer to get the wheel trim off than it took to cure the leak.
Someone near Putney Heath rang at half four with an early shift and a soft nearside rear. We were there inside the hour, changed the core, set the pressure from the vehicle figure and they left on the tyre they owned.
A car in East Putney had a warning light and a slow loss nobody could locate. The metal stem had corroded where it passes through the rim and was leaking around its own seal, so the whole valve came out and a new one went in.
Take the cap off, smear a little washing-up liquid across the open valve and watch it. A bubble means the core is passing air. If the valve stays dry, run soapy water round the tread and along the bead line instead.
More than people think. It keeps grit off the seat, which is what damages the core in the first place, and on a marginal core it acts as a second seal. Losing one is not a crisis, but replace it.
If the car has to move at six, yes. It is a small job and it stays small, whereas a tyre driven on soft for a few miles in morning traffic very often stops being repairable at all.
Whichever the tyre needs. A rubber valve with a weeping core takes a new core in a minute. A corroded metal sensor valve needs the tyre off the rim and the whole assembly renewed, and we say which before starting.
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