If you can see a nail or a screw head sitting in the tread, leave it there. It is the most natural thing in the world to want to pull it out and almost everybody has to be talked out of doing it. While that nail is still in the hole it is doing something useful. It is partly plugging its own wound, which is why so many punctures go down over hours rather than seconds.
Pull it out at the kerb on Caledonian Road and two things happen. The remaining air leaves quickly, so a tyre you might have been able to move a short distance becomes one you definitely cannot. And you lose the information. The angle a nail sits at tells us how it went in and how much of the casing it has passed through, and once it is out and in your pocket nobody can say whether the hole runs straight or at a slant across the belts. There is also the version where it shears off flush and now has to be dug out of the tread. So photograph it if you like, mention it when you ring, and leave it alone. Extracting it properly happens with the tyre off the rim and the inside of the casing in view, which is where the real decision gets made anyway.
Topping it up at a petrol station every few days is not a fix, it is a countdown. So it is worth ringing while it is still a small problem: we come to the car in N1C, take the wheel off and find the leak properly. Tight in Regent's Canal, easy in the York Way area: neither stops the job. Level in Caledonian Road, sloping in Pentonville Road: we set the car straight first. A N1C address in King's Cross and one in Battle Bridge are the same round.
Flat tyre help in King's Cross is part of our wider puncture repair across London and the home counties cover. For flat tyre help in King's Cross, call 07717 389637 or get a price for your tyre.
King's Cross is one of the least forgiving corners of London for a stopped car. The Euston Road queues along the southern edge, the gyratory around the stations never really lets go, and most of the kerb in N1C is red route or loading bay. So the priority is getting the car off the main roads into a side street or a car park, and then leaving everything alone, including whatever you can see sticking out of the tyre. The nail can wait for somebody with the tyre off the rim.
He rang and said there was a screw in it and asked whether to pull it out. We said leave it. It came out on the van with the tyre off the rim, the hole ran straight through the centre of the tread, and it was repaired.
Out and in the ashtray before we arrived. The tyre emptied in about a minute and the hole was much harder to find with nothing marking it. Nothing was ruined by it, but nothing was helped either.
A screw that had been driven over enough times to break level with the tread. That one had to be extracted properly rather than gripped and pulled, which is exactly the situation you create for yourself by tugging at things at the roadside.
No. Leave it exactly where it is. It is partly sealing its own hole, and once it is out the air goes quickly and the useful information about how it went in disappears with it.
It does. The angle tells us whether the hole runs straight through the tread or at a slant, and that affects whether a repair is permitted at all. It is far easier to judge with the nail still in place.
No, and this is where people get caught out. A tyre that has gone soft rather than flat still feels drivable, and driving it is what wrecks the sidewall and turns a repairable puncture into a new tyre.
That is fine and it happens often. Tell us when you ring, because a hole with nothing in it can be harder to locate. We find it with the tyre off the rim.
Yes, though the Euston Road and the red routes are no place to stop. If you can get into a side street off York Way or Caledonian Road, or into a car park, that is where we would rather meet you.
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