Patching your tire yourself
Bringing your car to a tire repair shop
Conclusion
Patching your tire yourself
If you have noticed that one of your tires has been consistently losing pressure but only does slowly and has not gone completely flat, then you likely have a leak in that tire. As long as it is a minor leak without major damage having occurred to the tire, you should be able to get it patched which will resolve the leak and future loss of pressure. What you will need to decide is if you want to try to do it yourself or if you feel it would be easier just to spend some extra money and have a tire shop or mechanic do it.
If you are confident enough to patch your tire yourself, you can use the following process to fix any leaks in a tire that has lost pressure:
- Fill the tire in question with air – You will not be able to identify the area of the tire that is the source of the escaping air if there is not enough air in the tire to begin with. Whenever you fill your tire do so to the suggested PSI that your vehicle’s owner’s manual suggests.
- See if you can spot a nail or a tear – At this point do a quick visual inspection of your tire to see if you can spot both where the leak is coming from as well as what caused it. This isn’t always the case, but the most frequent cause of a leak in a tire is usually a nail or something similar that has punctured the tire and remains lodged in it.
- Check for the sound or feel of rapidly escaping air – Whether or not you spotted something such as a nail stuck in your tire, you should put your ear to the tire to see if you can hear air rapidly rushing out of the tire. This is a tell-tale way of how to locate the source of your leak.
- Remove the tire from your car and from its rim – Take the necessary steps to remove your tire from your vehicle and it’s rim. You will need to patch it from the inside so it must come off the rim.
- Patch the tire – Once the tire is off of your car and the rim you can proceed to patch it. In order to do so, you will just need a reputable and well-reviewed tire plug kit which you can buy on a site like Amazon. Just follow the instructions that come with the kit.
- Put the tire back on the rim and the car – Now you can put your tire back on the rim and then back on your vehicle. You are ready to hit the road once again.
Bringing your car to a tire repair shop
You might be adept enough to remove your tire from your car, but many people are not adept enough to remove it from the rim and then securely place it back on the rim. Maybe you just do not feel like going through the process of plugging your own tire. Either way, you will always have the option of taking your car to a tire repair shop. In fact, some mechanics can likely also patch a tire for you.
This will be more expensive but it will save you the effort of doing it yourself and the job will be professionally done so you can be sure the work will be quality. Although it will be quicker than doing yourself, getting your tire patched at a tire repair shop will still take some time during which you will be without your vehicle. Typically, it will take a tire repair shop about twenty minutes to an hour. Most tire patch jobs will on the shorter end of that range.
The cost of bringing your car to a tire repair store and getting a tire patched will vary based on a few things. The kind of tire that you are bringing in to get repaired, the type of patch the shop performs, and what they charge for their labor among other things. On average, a typical tire patch job will cost between $20 and $35.
Conclusion
Patching a leak in one or more of your car’s tires can be both time consuming and difficult if you choose to do it yourself. However, it is definitely not impossible to complete on your own. Although, when you consider the fact that going to a tire repair shop will likely save you over an hour with their speed and expertise and it will also only cost you about thirty dollars overall, it really might be your best bet. Either way, it is important to take care of a leak in any tire because a leak can quickly get worse and lead to both a flat as well as the need to completely replace your tire.
