Not every tyre losing air has anything in it. A fair share of the slow leaks we get called to are coming from where the tyre meets the wheel rather than from the tread, and the giveaway is that there is nothing to find no matter how long anyone looks. Put soapy water on the joint and the bubbles come up all the way round the rim edge instead of at one point.
What causes it is corrosion. Alloy wheels oxidise where the bead seals against the flange, especially on cars living with road salt and agricultural grit, and the powdery white crust that builds up holds the bead a fraction off its seat. Air escapes through that gap steadily and quietly. You can hunt for a nail in a tyre like that all afternoon and never find one, which is why the first move is deciding which sort of leak it is. A bead seat leak wants the tyre off, the flange cleaned back to bright metal, fresh sealing compound and a refit. Chase a puncture instead and you have fixed nothing.
Urgent does not mean rushed, and it should not mean a worse repair. From Eastwood to West End, typical arrival is 30 to 60 minutes with a live ETA. If the tyre is beyond a safe repair you are told immediately rather than at the end. Tight in West End, easy in Eastwood: neither stops the job. Level in Estover, sloping in Norwood Road: we set the car straight first.
Emergency tyre repair in March is part of our wider puncture repair cover. For emergency tyre repair in March, call 07717 389637 or ask us for a quote.
Winter salt on the A142 and the grit that comes off the land onto the droves make a mixture that sits in wheel arches and works away at alloys all year round. Corroded bead seats are common enough here that we check for one before assuming a puncture, which saves a wasted visit and a second call the following week.
A car in Estover had been topped up every other day for a fortnight with nobody able to find a cause. Once water was on it the leak showed evenly around the rim. The wheel was stripped, the flange scraped and wire-brushed, and the same tyre went back on.
The other leak that is not a puncture lives in the valve. A perished rubber stem or a loose core lets air past slowly, and no amount of inspecting the tread will ever show it up. A new stem is a small job and the tyre itself needed nothing doing to it.
Sometimes it is both. A tyre off a car near Station Road had a screw squarely in the tread and a crusted flange underneath it. The screw took a combined plug and patch to BS AU 159 and the seat got cleaned, because doing half would have meant coming back.
Most often the seal between tyre and wheel. Corrosion builds under the bead and props it a fraction off its seat, so air seeps out all the way around instead of from one identifiable hole.
It is nearly always fixable. The tyre comes off, the corroded flange is cleaned back to bare metal, sealing compound goes on and it is refitted and rebalanced. A new wheel only comes into it if the flange is bent or pitted through.
Road salt and the grit that comes off farm traffic get into the joint and stay there. Alloy corrodes where that damp mixture is trapped against it, and a car standing still for long spells fares worse than one in daily use.
Yes. Everything needed travels with the fitter, including the machine to break the bead and the balancer, so a driveway or a farm yard works for this as well as a workshop would.
Soapy water and a proper look. A puncture gives one steady stream of bubbles from a single point. A seat leak fizzes along the rim edge, and that changes what happens next completely.
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