You'll never guess what I picked up in my tire!

[CatatonicBug]

This last Friday evening, I was on my way to the store, and had planned to stop by Cycle Gear afterward to pick up a cable lube tool. About a block from the parking lot, I suddenly feel a thump, thump, thump coming from the rear tire as it spins around! I was not losing control, so I couldn't figure out what was going on... Pulled off into a parking lot and set it on the sidestand, but the tires weren't deflated or anything. Lifted it onto the centerstand and spun the rear tire around and noticed this sticking out of the tread:



Yes, that's a spark plug! The whole thing! Of all the things I could possibly pick up in a tire, I would NEVER have expected that this was even possible! Thankfully, I keep a tire plug kit and a compressor in my saddlebag, so I was able to fix it right there, ride to Cycle Gear and get a replacement tire. Unfortunately, that meant I spent a LOT more than the $12 I was planning to spend... At least they had the exact tire I wanted, in stock, and they were able to install it the next morning when I brought the wheel back in.

[GARTHXS]

Looks like its running lean

[geobiker]

Nice!

Why did you have to put a plug into your tire . . . you already have one!!

[TopCatGr58]

Nice Puns folks!

Okay, I'm not wanting to turn this thread into a hot topic one so I'll try to "tread" lightly. Looks like a good time to "discuss" the merits of running on a repaired bike tire vs. replacing it. I've spun a plug out on a car tire decades ago, but again, being on a car, it's not anywhere as serious vs. a bike. But I have also had car tires that received punctures and were successfully repaired with a PROPER PATCH on the inside, not just a plug, and the hole was not in the sidewall.

However, on a bike, due to the more extreme lateral stresses placed on the tire due to leaning and such, vs. a car that's mostly straight, with the lateral stresses mostly on the edges/sidewall, is it the consensus of the master mechanics and such that a repaired (plugged or patched) bike tire only be ridden as long as needed to get you back home so it can then be replaced with a new undamaged tire....or is it okay to ride the repaired tire to the extent of it's normal tread life??

T.C.

[cywelchjr]

I've heard that some manufacturers says it's ok to repair WITH A PATCH if not in the sidewall area, and some say the tire must be replaced, but I've not found a shop the will repair a motorcycle tire. That said, I've personally run a tire using mushroom head plugs (I would not trust non mushroom head plugs for this) till end of tread life on a tire that got a puncture with about 30% life remaining. I'm not sure I'd have tried to run the rest of the tires life with 70% remaining, I'd likely have removed the tire and done an internal patch for the rest of the tire life.

[crazy steve]

None of the dealers around here will repair a punctured tire or a tube; it's replace only... With that said, I'll semi-agree with TC that plugging a tubeless bike tire should be approached with caution. A hole the size shown would get a new tire if it were me, but I wouldn't have a problem with plugging a smaller hole like a nail or screw hole. I might patch the one shown, but for sure no plug....

FWIW, I've never had any issues with patching bike tires before, but then again all I've ever owned is bikes with tube tires; the SG I sold was the first bike I ever owned with tubeless tires...

[jetmechmarty]

To do it properly, you must use a plug AND a patch combination. What's best is a mushroom plug that seals the inner liner and seals the path of the injury. I'm not speaking of the non-vulcanized little mushroom plugs in the Stop-N-Go kits. I'm speaking of a wire patch-plug. Whether or not a damaged tire may remain in service depends largely upon what the tire manufacturer says about it.

[cywelchjr]

None of the dealers around here will repair a punctured tire or a tube; it's replace only... With that said, I'll semi-agree with TC that plugging a tubeless bike tire should be approached with caution. A hole the size shown would get a new tire if it were me, but I wouldn't have a problem with plugging a smaller hole like a nail or screw hole. I might patch the one shown, but for sure no plug....

FWIW, I've never had any issues with patching bike tires before, but then again all I've ever owned is bikes with tube tires; the SG I sold was the first bike I ever owned with tubeless tires...

I've never had problems with patching bike tires, but never had a shop do a repair for me. I've also never repaired a tube, always put a new tube in a damaged tire (not totally true, I've repaired a tube on the roadside, but then replaced right away). As for tubeless, my 11 is the first tubeless. As for plugs, I as I said, won't use anything but mushroom head plugs, while I understand even they can be thrown, they are far less likely, and I won't plug anything larger than a nail or something similar in size, and only in the main tread area, not anywhere near the sidewalls. As bug did, with something that size, the plug would be a temp fix until I could get a new tire mounted, I would not trust the plug to stay in.

My plug kit is the stop-n-go, it's only a temp repair, but it will get you home so you get get the job done right.

[Bonz]

Had an ST 1300 for a year or so. Picked up a nail heading west out of Rawlins toward Rock Springs (final destination Jackson Wyoming), plugged it with the goopy rope-type stuff. Put another 900 miles on the tire for the trip and it started to slowly lose air a week or so after I got home. Took the tire to a local auto repair/tire shop (not a name brand shop, a local owned one) and had a mushroom plug put in. Tire held air fine after that.

I think a study is in order of deliberately puncturing a few tires, plugging them and reporting back with the results.


When I think of a car tire and the way it bears load, because of the flat profile, when going around a corner it seems there would be a good bit of pull/stretch across the tread with the application of cornering force.

A motorcycle tire is much stiffer overall, yes?, and directly bears the load imposed by cornering via the rounded profile, thus less chance for the tire to deform under load and cause a plugged/patched tire to lose air.

I'd think a reason a motorcycle tire would not be a good candidate to patch is the comparatively low tread life vs a car tire, and the tread will wear down more quickly, thus possilbly compromising the patch.

BUT with all that said, has anyone had an instantaneous deflation of a car tire or motorcycle tire due to a failed patch? I've never heard of one on either count.

Thoughts?

[cywelchjr]

I'd think a reason a motorcycle tire would not be a good candidate to patch is the comparatively low tread life vs a car tire, and the tread will wear down more quickly, thus possilbly compromising the patch.

I don't think that would be an issue, as I'm pretty sure that the patch/plug would wear at pretty much the same rate as the tire does. I think I would agree with Marty about the type of repair for a permanent repair, being the large head mushroom plugs (as he said, not the plug and go type, which are temp plugs to get you home primarily) that are really a plug with a patch. Even with that, I wouldn't repair anything but a very small hole, and only if I was really sure that no cords had gotten cut.

[GLoweVA]

I ran with a plug for a while

One day a came out of work to go home and voila, I had an almost flat rear tire.
I was really bummed, I had just bought that tire 2 months prior so it had a ton of tread left.
I put it on the center stand and rotated the tire and I had picked up a nail.
I ended up limping it down to the 7-11 and put air in it, it held mostly and I had to stop once more for air before I got home.

So, I had a plug kit for my jeep and being the cheapy guy that I am, I said sure I'll plug it.
The thought of that plug in my rear tire haunted me on every ride to/from work for months. It did hold for a long time with out ever leaking.
So I did get some of the useful life out of that tread.
Then one day on the interstate POP, thud, thud, thud. At 65mph my back tire was flat.
Eased it over to the left side shoulder and called the Mrs.
I didn't even think to ask the guys at cycle gear to look at the old tire when they took it off to see what caused it.
Who knows, maybe I hit a pothole or some other debris, the roads down here royally s*ck. (TC knows what I'm talking about)

Summary, I'd patch again if I had to, and probably would ride for quite a few miles on it until I had the funds, the new tire got shipped and recieved and ready to put on.

[Bonz]

Cy,

I wasn't thinking in terms of the tire and plug wearing at different rates, rather that the effetive life of the tire would probably be less than if the tire was unplugged, simply because a thinner tire (less tread) won't give as much lateral support/surface area of plug in the tread hole itself and thus flex of the tire carcass around the plug could allow the tire to lose air.

If you have a thousand miles of tread left, and the effective life of the tire is reduced to five hundred miles (all speculation for the sake of the discussion) because of what I said above, then it might not be worth the effort to plug it is ultimately what I was trying to convey.

[cywelchjr]

Cy,

I wasn't thinking in terms of the tire and plug wearing at different rates, rather that the effetive life of the tire would probably be less than if the tire was unplugged, simply because a thinner tire (less tread) won't give as much lateral support/surface area of plug in the tread hole itself and thus flex of the tire carcass around the plug could allow the tire to lose air.

If you have a thousand miles of tread left, and the effective life of the tire is reduced to five hundred miles (all speculation for the sake of the discussion) because of what I said above, then it might not be worth the effort to plug it is ultimately what I was trying to convey.

That's why we were saying that a proper repair requires a mushroom plug which is a plug with a patch attached at the top. So you have a plug filling the hole, with a patch on the inside of the tire, so the plug is doing nothing but keeping the hole filled and structurally sound while the patch which is part of the plug, is bonded to the inside of the tire like any other patch, it just has the plug as an integral part of it. That way the plug can't come out, but the leak is patch with a patch rather than the plug.

The "just a plug" is IMHO only for a temp repair to get home or for a repair that's only going to last for a few hundred miles cause the tires close to EOL already. That said, I'm not the type of rider who pushes his bike OR tires hard anyways.

[clcorbin]

Yup, rear tire! In cases like this, it is almost ALWAYS the rear tire that gets nailed (or sparkpluged, or pliered, or...). What happens is the front tire kicks up the object so it is positioned to be driven into the rear tire when it hits it next. I managed to pickup up a nice pair of line pliers in the rear tire of my sister's Edge that way! I had the same reaction too as I could hear the noise when rolling, but I didn't see anything when I stopped to look at it (parked on the pliers) and it wasn't leaking either.

I am sure that would be a bit more exciting on a bike though!

[BA80]

I got a nail in my rear tire the day before going to the "Lost in Minnesota" rally the summer of 2010. Plugged it and hoped it would be OK.........WRONG!!!

The next afternoon I left Tulsa for KC to meet up with RussXS79 and made it about 25 miles and it threw the plug.

Determined to make the trip I limped up the road about a mile to a Walmart and plugged it again. This got me on into KC.

The next morning Russ and I headed north to Cedar Rapids to meet up with Bob Falter. Made it about 100 miles and threw that plug also. I had a plug kit in the tools and LUCKILY where I stopped there was a road crew working with jack hammers on the other side of the interstate. They had a HUGE compressor and I was able to air up my tire in the middle of nowhere.

That one lasted until I got back to KC and Bigfoot had a decent old tire I put on to get back to Tulsa.

Moral of the story is........unless your REALLY determined to get somewhere and are feeling REALLY lucky, don't plug your tire. Replace it!!!!!