The letter at the end of the code on your sidewall is the speed rating, and it certifies the tyre as it was built. H, V, W or Y each stand for a speed the tyre was tested to sustain under load. It is not a suggestion about how fast to drive and it is not a badge. It is a statement about construction, about how much heat the casing and the belts can take without coming apart, and it is one of the things a repair touches, which is why it comes up.
A repair made to the recognised standard restores the tyre's ability to hold air and its strength through the tread. What it cannot do is renew a manufacturer's certification of a tyre they no longer built. So a repaired tyre gets marked, on the tyre itself, so that whoever takes it off in three years' time can see there is a patch in there and roughly where. On British roads, where the highest legal speed sits a long way below what even the lowest of those ratings covers, that is a paperwork distinction rather than a practical one. It becomes a real one the moment a tyre is replaced instead of repaired, because the new one has to carry at least the rating the car was built around.
The repair takes about as long as a coffee, which is why it is worth doing at your workplace rather than anybody's workshop. A bay in an office or retail car park around Bow town centre is enough room. You carry on with the morning; the wheel comes off, the tyre comes off the rim, the damage is checked from the inside and a mushroom plug goes in where BS AU 159 allows one. Then it is rebalanced, refitted and the pressure is set, and the first you need to know about it is that the car is done. Card or contactless, settled at the vehicle.
Puncture repair in Bow is part of our wider mobile puncture repair cover. For puncture repair in Bow, call 07717 389637 or get a price for your tyre.
Bow Road runs straight and quick between the lights and then feeds up onto the flyover, so a car here spends its life either stationary or working hard, with very little in between. That is more demanding on a tyre than steady mileage ever is, and it is why the ratings stamped into the sidewall are worth reading rather than assuming. When we come out to a repair around E3 we read the whole code off the wheel before deciding anything, because the size on its own has never been the full description of a tyre.
A repair on a driveway in Old Ford was patched from the inside and then marked on the sidewall alongside the injury. It takes seconds to do and it means the next person to take that tyre off the rim is not guessing.
A driver near Bow Common had been quoted a cheaper tyre with a speed rating below the car's own specification. It is cheaper for a reason, and it is not a saving anybody should be making on a customer's behalf without saying so.
Before anything came out of the van on Fairfield Road, the full code was read off the tyre still on the car. The replacement then matched in size, load index and speed rating, rather than in size alone.
Strictly, the certification applied to the tyre as the manufacturer made it, and a repair alters the tyre, so the original rating stops being their guarantee. In practice, on roads with a national limit well below what any of those letters covers, a properly made repair is not something you will ever notice.
So that the repair is not a secret. The mark tells whoever has the tyre off next that there is a patch inside and roughly where it sits, which matters if a second injury turns up nearby, because two repairs close together are not acceptable. It costs a couple of seconds and it protects the next person to look.
Not below what the car was built around. The rating goes with construction and heat tolerance, and the figure on your door placard is the specification the car was approved with. Higher is allowed and occasionally even cheaper on a common size. Lower is a corner nobody sensible cuts.
A slow leak is not always a nail. Done kerbside in Old Ford (E3), wheel rebalanced before it goes back. Old tyres leave Fish Island, Roman Road and E3 with us, every time.
★★★★★ 4.9 from 151 verified Google reviews.
Read all 151 reviews on Google →Prefer a callback? Send your details for a puncture repair price in Bow.