The verdict on a puncture comes from the inside of the tyre, not the outside. Once the wheel is off and the rubber is unseated from the rim, the inner liner shows exactly what that tyre has been through. A liner that is smooth, clean and the same colour all the way round means the car stopped when it should have.
A tyre driven soft looks entirely different in there. The sidewalls have been folding in on themselves at every rotation, and the inner faces rub against each other and against the rim shelf. What you find is a grey scuffed band running right round the liner, loose black dust in the bottom of the casing, and often a fine crease you can feel with a thumb.
That rules out a repair for two separate reasons. The casing has already been weakened where nobody can see it, and a patch has to bond to a smooth clean liner to hold pressure for the rest of the tyre's life. It will not stick to chafed rubber and powder.
The space saver in the boot is the reason people drive on a flat, which is a shame, because it is not much of a solution either. Changing to it at the roadside on Lewisham Way is also the least safe thing you will do that week. The wheel comes off in Ladywell, not on a ramp in Deptford. Nothing is towed out of Hither Green or Loampit Vale; the work finishes there. The SE13 postcode and a street in Lee: that is enough.
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Most of the run flat damage we see in SE13 is not recklessness. It is somebody moving the car because there was nowhere to leave it. The terraced streets have no driveways, a space that empties fills again within minutes, and a driver with a soft tyre naturally rolls round the corner looking for room.
A tyre off a car near Loampit Vale had one neat screw in the tread and not a mark on the sidewall. The liner carried a grey band right round it and a handful of rubber dust in the bottom. It had been driven home the night before.
A driver on Lee High Road covered a little distance at low speed to get clear of a busy road, which was the right decision. The liner came out clean, the puncture was central, and the tyre was sealed to BS AU 159.
A tyre from Ladywell looked fine to the owner and looked fine to us until a hand went round the inside. A raised line ran the whole circumference where the sidewall had been folding over. They felt it too.
Less far than people hope. A few hundred metres at walking pace to get out of traffic is usually survivable. A mile at road speed usually is not, and the damage happens quietly while the car still feels driveable.
No, and that is the honest position. A tyre run flat often looks entirely normal from the pavement, because the outer rubber never touched anything. The evidence is on the inner liner, so the tyre has to come off the rim first.
A patch works by bonding to the liner across a wide area and carrying pressure through that bond. Chafed rubber and loose dust give it nothing to hold onto, and the cords behind it have already been flexed past what they were built for.
The construction is different, but the allowance is real and short. Run-flats use stiff sidewalls to carry the car a restricted distance at a restricted speed, and once that is used up the casing is finished the same way.
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