Frustrating!

[J.Ralston]

Last week I drove a little over 2 hours away from my house to pick up a vintage Gibson acoustic guitar for a friend in Florida, who bought it off of the original owner.
Shortly after getting on the I-25 South freeway I observed a semi truck in the lane next to me having what appeared to be metal dropping off of his truck below the cab. We were in stop and go traffic and I was going to try and get as far away from that semi as I could. But then suddenly as I was attempting to change over into the slow lane on the right, that was next to me, my rear, drivers side, low tire air pressure monitoring warning light came on. At that moment I knew that it was going to be bad because I could literally watch my tires air pressure drop my 2 to 3 psi about every 5 seconds or so.

When I was finally able to do so, I pulled over to the shoulder and sure enough, there was a huge chunk of metal stuck in my tire! And what sucks is that my tires and Jeep only had about 3,600 miles on them at the time.

So now I have got a new tire on order that after everything is said and done will cost me around $400.00 after taxes, disposable fees, road hazard warranty and so on.

What makes things worse is that I was starting to look at aftermarket rims and tires to buy and was beginning to research the BF Goodrich All Terrain TKO-2’s vs. other off road tires. I’ve always run TKO’s in every one of my trucks in the past but I wanted to see the data and feedback from other people on what tires they use for off roading? I still may do that and run 35’s on my 21’ JLUR but it just sucks that I’m crapping out a ton of money for 1 tire, that only had 3,600 to 3,700 miles at the very most on it at that time.

Here is a pic of the hunk of metal that is in my tire right now.

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[wibornz]

I would pull that out, plug it and use it as a spare. I would not buy another tire. I Jeep travel a lot and frankly would have plugged that tire on the side of the road and filled it back up with air and continued on my way. Then switched to the spare when I got home.

 

[TheBirdie72]

I don’t understand. Don’t you have 2WD? I thought this was what it was for! . I would’ve just driven it home like this and fixed the flat in the driveway.

 

[californiajeeping]

 

[areuriding]

Patch it from the inside and you'll be fine. On my last Jeep I had just dropped 1600 for 4 tires and on the 2 mile drive home I ran over what looked like a piece of HVAC tin. Such wonderful luck, anyhow I turned right around and went back thinking it couldn't be fixed. Well the tire shop felt bad cuz I was just there 10 minutes before and patched from inside and walla I was on my way with never an issue, got 35k outta those tires even with the patched one.

 

[JABCAT]

If you weren’t aware, you can buy tire replacement certificates from Discount Tire ( if you have locations near you ) on new car tires. Whenever I buy a new vehicle I drive over to DT & purchase the certificates for the tires. On my wife’s new Grand Cherokee with 20” wheels it was $140 for 4 replacement certificates. Much better than $400 to replace 1 tire.

 

[J.Ralston]

For everyone saying to patch it, what patch kit do you recommend? And what is the biggest size hole that can be patched? I had 2 tire shops say that it couldn’t be patched. Because of that, that is why I ordered another tire but would love to patch it if I could.

 

[Left Field]

I've had great success plugging round punctures on many tires. Only fair long term success on anything that is a cut or slice., even if relatively small. If tire cords are cut your risk of a failure goes way up. Those I have relegated to a spare or replaced. You might have some luck finding a single tire on one of the on-line classified ad type forums..

FWIW here's what Discount Tire says:
A tire puncture greater than 1/4 inch (or 6mm) cannot be repaired. A new tire replacement is needed if a puncture exceeds this limit. Large tread punctures, irregular gashes or cuts exceeding 1/4 inch cannot be repaired. If a cut slices through the tire’s steel belts, it reduces the strength and durability of the tire, making it unreliable and unsafe.

For simple nail or screw punctures, I usually just use a plug. For a more complicated puncture, these have a better chance of success, but require access inside the tire:

 

[Avar928]

For everyone saying to patch it, what patch kit do you recommend? And what is the biggest size hole that can be patched? I had 2 tire shops say that it couldn’t be patched. Because of that, that is why I ordered another tire but would love to patch it if I could.

Shop around definitely. In the past I've had a few shops say they couldn't patch a hole that "seemed" too big and tried to sell me a new tire, took it to a local shop that was recommended and they did it no problem. No issues when I had that car. Ran that tire down to its end of life also.

I ran over a bolt recently and also had a couple of places refuse, took it to a nearby NTB and they turned it over in a day. No issues.

 

[Wheelin Matt]

You can buy a tire plug kit for about $30 and plug a hole in 5-10 minutes. I’ve done it a bunch of times over my lifetime so far & used the tire for thousands of miles afterwards without any issues. Sidewall punctures are a different animal however! I just bought a sidewall specific patch kit but it’s just to get you back to civilization so you can then replace the tire

 

[Tharris]

I’ve plugged many a tire, and I’m confident in saying plugging a whole that big would be a foolish idea. Once you take that thing out it’s gonna be a massive hole not a small nail hole that can be easily plugged.

 

[jeepdabest]

Did you all tend to plug more holes when you were younger? They also seemed smaller then.

 

[gsbrockman]

I’ve plugged many a tire, and I’m confident in saying plugging a whole that big would be a foolish idea. Once you take that thing out it’s gonna be a massive hole not a small nail hole that can be easily plugged.

Exactly......based on the size of the tread blocks of the tire in question, coupled with the proximity to the sidewall, it’s certainly non-repairable.

Anyone that would attempt to repair it and even use it for a spare would be in for a surprise when it was needed again.

 

[wibornz]

So this is what I would tell you. A tire plug kit comes with two basic tools. One tool is used to ream the hole in the tire to properly fit the tire plug. If you use the reaming tool and it has no resistance going into the hole in the tire, then it is not safe to plug. If you use the reaming tool and you get resistance pushing it through the hole in the tire then you are good to plug the tire. You can buy a better kit than the one shown below, but a kit like this can be found at just about any gas station.

I personally carry the ARB tire repair kit. Like this one because it has other things that I may need while out on the trail like additional valve stems, valve stem cores, valve stem caps and additional plugs. I have used the valve stem cores and valve stem caps the most.

 

[cbh]

Last week I drove a little over 2 hours away from my house to pick up a vintage Gibson acoustic guitar for a friend in Florida, who bought it off of the original owner.
Shortly after getting on the I-25 South freeway I observed a semi truck in the lane next to me having what appeared to be metal dropping off of his truck below the cab. We were in stop and go traffic and I was going to try and get as far away from that semi as I could. But then suddenly as I was attempting to change over into the slow lane on the right, that was next to me, my rear, drivers side, low tire air pressure monitoring warning light came on. At that moment I knew that it was going to be bad because I could literally watch my tires air pressure drop my 2 to 3 psi about every 5 seconds or so.

When I was finally able to do so, I pulled over to the shoulder and sure enough, there was a huge chunk of metal stuck in my tire! And what sucks is that my tires and Jeep only had about 3,600 miles on them at the time.

So now I have got a new tire on order that after everything is said and done will cost me around $400.00 after taxes, disposable fees, road hazard warranty and so on.

What makes things worse is that I was starting to look at aftermarket rims and tires to buy and was beginning to research the BF Goodrich All Terrain TKO-2’s vs. other off road tires. I’ve always run TKO’s in every one of my trucks in the past but I wanted to see the data and feedback from other people on what tires they use for off roading? I still may do that and run 35’s on my 21’ JLUR but it just sucks that I’m crapping out a ton of money for 1 tire, that only had 3,600 to 3,700 miles at the very most on it at that time.

Here is a pic of the hunk of metal that is in my tire right now.

I ran over a pair of shears with my KO2s that caused the tire to go flat in less than 1 minute. No tire could have survived that. I still think KO2s are the best all around tire for on and off road.

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