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Tyre Repairs


Westy

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My friend has just borrowed my motorhome and had a puncture whilst away. He says that he has put the spare on (off side) and the damaged tyre has been "plugged". Is the damaged tyre safe to use now or would it be advisable just to replace it completely.
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My family have run a safari operation in South Africa for about ten years now, and they have repaired literally hundreds of punctures in tubeless tyres. The operation is based in an area with "Dichrostachys cinerea", a plant with particularly horrible thorns that are able to penetrate even the rear wheel of a tractor.

 

Recently, they had their first failure - well under 1% failure rate. I have repaired two puntures here in the UK with satisfactory results, using "plugs".

 

Rog

 

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Hello

A 'plug' as its called is a rubber patch with a long (about 3") rubber tail coming out of the center of the patch. The fitter will remove the offending object from the tyre, will rough up the inside of the tyre equal to the size of the patch going to be used, would normally drill through the hole to clean it up, put some rubber glue around the roughed up area and then proceed to pull the tail through the tyre until the patch has covered the hole, He would then run a tool (called a stitch) over the patch to make sure it has adhered to the tyre, he would then cut off the tail at the same height as the tread. the tail fills the hole left from the foreign object that entered the tyre. If done correctly the patch should last as long as the tyre.

PS: i am surprised they even did the repair, its a good way for tyre dealers to sell more tyres by saying the tyre cannot be repaired, unless they didn,t have your size tyre in stock?

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