Air is the only thing holding a tyre onto the wheel. The bead is a hoop of steel cable moulded into the tyre's inner edge, and inflation pressure is what jams it out against the rim flange and keeps it there. Nothing else grips it. So when a tyre lets go at speed, the loss of pressure and the loss of that grip are the same event: the bead slides down off its seat and the casing goes slack on a wheel that is still turning at fifty. That is why a blowout drags the car so hard toward the failed corner. You are not steering against a soft tyre, you are steering against a tyre that has stopped being attached to anything.
Which decides what your hands should do. Hold the wheel straight and firm, come off the power instead of braking, and let the speed fall away before you ask the car to change direction. The useful thing to know in advance about the Old Street Roundabout is that none of this can be dealt with there, and trying is worse than carrying on. Get past the junction, off onto something quieter, then tell us the street you have stopped in. We run through the night and every day of the year, and the common car, SUV and 4x4 sizes travel on the van.
Potholes cause more blowouts than speed does. We come to where you have stopped in EC1V, fit and balance a replacement of the correct size on the spot, and check the wheel itself for damage while it is off. School run in St Luke's or 1am in Moorfields, we answer the same. Christmas Day in City Road, any day in the Featherstone Street area: the line is open. An EC1V address in the Featherstone Street area and one in the Bunhill Fields area are the same round.
Burst tyre replacement in Old Street is part of our wider 24-hour emergency callout across London and the home counties cover. For burst tyre replacement in Old Street, call 07717 389637 or ask us for a quote.
The A501 carries buses, cabs and delivery traffic more or less constantly, and the surface on the approaches takes a hammering from it. That is where the potholes and the dropped debris are, and a tyre that lets go at the wrong moment there leaves you with nowhere to go and a lorry sitting on your tail. It is worth deciding in advance what you would do: hands still, power off, speed down, then pick a side street once the car is slow enough to steer properly rather than fighting for the first gap you see.
A rear tyre emptied at speed and was off its seat before the next set of lights. By the time we reached the car it was sitting loose on the rim, and the last hundred yards had been carried by the edge of the wheel rather than by any tyre.
Once a tyre has run off the bead, the edge of the wheel is the first thing worth inspecting, because a burred or flattened flange gives the next tyre nothing clean to sit against. That one had survived the experience, so a replacement went straight on.
A driver felt the steering go heavy on the approach, came off before committing to the roundabout and stopped in a side street with the hazards on. That single decision turned a genuinely nasty situation into an ordinary hour.
Because the tyre is no longer attached to the rim in the way it was a second earlier. When the bead unseats, the casing slumps and starts dragging on the road at a different rate to the other three wheels, and that difference goes straight into the steering. Holding the wheel firmly and letting the speed drop is what gets you through it.
No. A tyre that has run off its bead at any speed has had the bead area and the inner face chewed against the rim, and those are the surfaces that make the seal. Even if it held air for a while it would not hold it dependably, and the damage sits well outside anything a repair covers.
More often than not, yes. The flange takes a beating and can end up burred, flattened or cracked, so we look at it before anything new goes on. A rim in that state is worth knowing about, because it will chew up whatever tyre goes on next and can leave a brand new one weeping air.
That is exactly where we would rather find you. Give us the street name and the nearest building or junction, say which side you are parked on, and we come to the car. Typical arrival is 30 to 60 minutes, and we do not work in live traffic on the junction itself.
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