Key takeaways
- Safety first: away from traffic, behind a barrier on a motorway, and out of the car if the roadside is live.
- Clear the boot. On most cars the jack, the tools and the locking wheel nut key live under the floor.
- Find the locking wheel nut key before anyone arrives. It is the single most common reason a job stops.
- Do not pull out a nail, and do not keep pumping a tyre that will not hold air.
There is a strange dead time between making the call and seeing a van. Nothing is happening, the tyre is no less flat than it was, and most people spend it standing next to the car feeling useless. It is genuinely useful time, and spending it well is the difference between a job that takes twenty minutes on arrival and one that takes fifty.
Where should you wait?
Somewhere away from moving traffic, and out of the car if the car is anywhere near a live carriageway. The Highway Code is clear on this for motorways and fast roads: leave the vehicle by the door away from traffic and get behind a barrier where one exists. On a quiet residential street the calculation is different and sitting in the car is perfectly reasonable.
| Where you are | Wait where |
|---|---|
| Motorway or dual carriageway | Behind the barrier, uphill of the car if possible. Never in the vehicle unless leaving it is unsafe. |
| A-road with a verge | Off the carriageway, behind anything solid, away from the direction traffic is coming from. |
| Residential street | In the car is fine. Hazards on if you are anywhere near the running lane. |
| Car park | In the car, or inside the building if there is one and the wait is long. |
| Your own driveway | Indoors. Leave a phone somewhere you will hear it. |
If it is dark, a high-visibility item makes a real difference and most cars have one somewhere. If you have passengers, they follow the same rule as you: on a fast road, everyone is out of the car and behind the barrier, and animals stay in it.
The five-minute preparation that saves half an hour
Find the key, clear the boot, and read the sidewall. Almost every delay on a mobile tyre job comes from one of three things not being available when the fitter is knelt beside the wheel, and all three can be sorted while you are standing around anyway.
- The locking wheel nut key. This is the big one. It is usually in the boot with the jack, in the glovebox, or in the spare wheel well. Without it the wheel does not come off, and the job stops.
- Clear the boot. On most cars the jack, the brace and the spare all live under the boot floor. If there is a fortnight of shopping or a pushchair on top of it, that has to come out before anything starts.
- Read the tyre size off the sidewall and check it against what you gave on the phone. The sequence looks like 205/55 R16 91V, moulded into the rubber.
- Check whether the other tyres match. Some cars run different sizes front and rear, and it is better known now than discovered later.
- Make space around the car. If a neighbouring bay or a stretch of kerb can be kept clear on the side of the flat tyre, keep it clear.
If you are on your own, or it is late
Move the wait somewhere with light and people if you reasonably can. This is not about the tyre at all, and it is the part of a breakdown that advice tends to skip because it is uncomfortable rather than technical. A lit forecourt, a station concourse or a supermarket entrance is a better place to spend forty minutes than an unlit lay-by, and the car is no less broken down for you standing somewhere else.
- Tell someone where you are and roughly how long you expect to be, by postcode rather than description.
- Keep the phone charged. If it is low, that changes the order of everything else you do.
- Lock the car if you are waiting outside it and are not on a fast road, where the guidance is to be out and behind a barrier regardless.
- If you feel unsafe rather than merely inconvenienced, say so when you call. It does not change the tyre but it can change what is arranged.
Two things not to do while you wait
Do not pull the nail out, and do not keep pumping a tyre that will not hold. Both feel productive and both make the situation worse, which is why they are worth naming specifically rather than leaving to judgement.
Leave the nail in place. While it is in the tread it is partially plugging its own hole, so the tyre deflates far more slowly than it would without it. It also shows exactly where the damage is, which saves finding it. Pulling it out typically turns a slow leak into a flat tyre in minutes and gains you nothing.
Stop inflating a tyre that empties again. A compressor is useful for getting a slow puncture to a safe place. It is not useful against a hole that will not hold, and repeatedly running a tyre at low pressure destroys the inner sidewall, which turns a repairable puncture into a replacement. If it will not hold for a few minutes, it will not hold for the drive.
The checks worth doing on the other three tyres
Look at the ones that are not flat, because you are already knelt beside the car with nothing else to do. A tyre that is close to the legal limit, cracked with age or wearing unevenly is a problem you will be dealing with within weeks anyway, and knowing about it now costs nothing.
- Tread depth. A 20p coin gives a rough check: insert it into the main grooves, and if the outer band of the coin is visible the tread may be close to the limit and the tyre needs measuring properly.
- Uneven wear. Wear concentrated on one edge usually points at alignment or pressure rather than at the tyre, and it will keep happening to whatever is fitted next.
- Cracking in the sidewall. Fine cracks across the rubber are age rather than mileage, and age matters independently of how much tread is left.
- Anything embedded. A second nail found now is far better than a second nail found next Tuesday.
None of that is urgent tonight. It is simply information you will not have another easy chance to gather, and it is the sort of thing wear patterns makes sense of.
Deciding what you actually want done
Use the wait to work out whether you are hoping for a repair or expecting a replacement, because the answer is largely fixed by where the damage is rather than by preference. Repairs are confined to the central three-quarters of the tread under BS AU 159, and no repair is permitted to the sidewall or the shoulder, however small the damage looks.
It is also worth glancing at the tread depth while you are there. The legal minimum in the UK is 1.6mm across the central three-quarters of the tread, and driving below it risks a fine of up to £2,500 and three penalty points per tyre. If a tyre is close to the limit anyway, repairing it buys very little, and it is better to know that before the conversation than during it.
Give us the postcode, the registration and the size off the sidewall, and you will get a real arrival time and a straight answer on whether the tyre can be repaired or needs replacing. Typically 30 to 60 minutes across London and the nearer Home Counties, longer further out.
If you are not sure the tyre is repairable, this sets out the limits. If the location is the difficult part, describing where you are covers that, and puncture repair explains what a proper repair involves.
Frequently asked questions
It depends where you are. On a motorway or fast dual carriageway, leave by the door away from traffic and wait behind the barrier. On a residential street or in a car park, staying in the car is fine, with hazard lights on if you are near moving traffic.
The locking wheel nut key, a clear boot, and the tyre size read off the sidewall. Those three cover almost every avoidable delay, because the jack and the tools usually live under the boot floor and the key is needed before the wheel will move.
No. The nail partly plugs the hole it made, so removing it usually empties the tyre within minutes. It also marks the damage, which saves time locating it. Leave it exactly where it is and mention it when you call.
Only if it holds long enough to move the car somewhere safer. Repeatedly inflating a tyre that empties again wrecks the inner sidewall from running at low pressure, and can turn a puncture that was repairable into one that is not.
Arrival depends on distance and traffic, and you should be given a real time on the call rather than a stock figure. The fitting itself is usually a short job once someone is with the car, provided the wheel nut key is to hand and the boot is clear.