Somewhere in the boot there is probably a bottle of tyre sealant, or an aerosol can of the stuff, and it is the most tempting object available to you right now. It is also the one thing that can turn a repairable puncture into a new tyre. Worth knowing that before you reach for it on a street off Blackstock Road.
Here is what it actually does. The liquid goes in through the valve and is flung outwards as the wheel turns, so it coats the inside of the tyre and, with luck, plugs the hole from within. It sometimes works, for a while, and it is genuinely useful if you are somewhere you must not stay. What it also does is coat the pressure sensor, fill the inside of the casing with a gluey film and make a proper internal inspection impossible until the whole thing has been washed out. Plenty of tyres get written off for that reason rather than for the puncture that started it. Sealant also cannot deal with a hole in the shoulder or the sidewall, which is where a fair share of them sit, so half the time you have made the mess for nothing at all. In Highbury you are minutes away from a fitter. Leave the can where it is.
Waiting at the roadside with a flat is mostly about not being in the way. Get as far off the carriageway as you safely can, hazards on, and everybody out and behind a barrier if there is one. Same tools in Aberdeen Park as in Drayton Park, same on every call. Valve in Drayton Park, balance in Aberdeen Park, pressures before we go.
Flat tyre help in Highbury is part of our wider puncture repair across London and the home counties cover. For flat tyre help in Highbury, call 07717 389637 or ask us for a quote.
Highbury sits in a quiet pocket between two very busy roads, which is exactly the situation that makes a sealant can look sensible. The thought is always the same, that you will get it moving now and deal with it later. Later means Holloway Road traffic on a compromised tyre and a repair that is no longer on the table. The streets around Highbury Fields and Highbury Barn are easy for us to reach, so leave the car in its space and have it dealt with properly the first time.
The sealant had gone in about an hour before we arrived. The puncture itself was a small nail dead centre in the tread and would have been a routine repair on any other day. It was not one by the time the tyre came off the rim.
The tyre came off with the pressure sensor coated in a hardened film that had to be cleaned away before it would read properly again. None of that work had the slightest thing to do with the nail that caused the flat.
She had the kit sitting in the boot and rang us instead. The tyre was repaired to BS AU 159, went back onto the same wheel, and nothing had to be washed out of anything.
Sometimes. If you are stopped somewhere genuinely unsafe and it gets you off that spot, use it, because that is what it exists for. On an ordinary street in N5 with a fitter half an hour away it costs you far more than it saves.
Often. It has to be cleaned out completely before the inside of the casing can be inspected, and if the film has hardened that may not be worth doing. A tyre that arrives clean has a much better chance of being saved.
That is the other casualty. Sealant coats the sensor inside the wheel and can stop it reading correctly, so you end up paying to replace a part that had nothing wrong with it before the can went in.
Not on its own and not as a way of topping up repeatedly. Pumping air into a tyre with a hole in it only moves the problem further down the road, and around Holloway Road traffic that road tends to be a busier one.
Tell us on the phone rather than letting us discover it. We will bring a replacement out as well, so that whichever way the inspection goes you are not left waiting on a second visit.
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