At some point my RAV4 tire picked up a nail and went completely flat. I didn’t notice before pulling out of the garage. I got down to the next house before I realized there was an issue with the tire, I immediately turned around pulled back into my driveway. I probably drove under 300 feet total and didn’t reach 30 mph.
Is the tire likely toast now? Will the tire shop be able to tell if it’s good or not?
Also, why didn’t the TPMS light go on? Is there maybe something wrong with it or was a complete flat so far out of range that it thought it was getting bogus data?
I am not a mechanic, but it’s very unlikely you caused any damage to the tire. Certainly the tire shop can tell. If the nail is in a “good” spot, they will patch/plug it and you’ll be good as new.
The shop will 100% be able to tell. Most shops these days have long since stopped plugging tires (it might not even be legal anymore) and have started patching them from the inside. When they pull the tire off the rim, they’ll be able to see what’s going on. If the tire is full of little chunks of rubber (looks like rubber sawdust), you’re getting a new tire.
This should be cued up, but if you start at the beginning he’ll show you that the tire, from the outside, looks totally fine, but once you see the inside, you (or at least a mechanic) can spot the problem.
(ETA, I see the thumbnail now that I’ve posted it. The “#1 reason to not plug your tire” is because patching it forces you to look at the inside as well.
And, FWIW, this guy very, very rarely does these short PSA (and sorta clickbaity) videos, but once in a while something really gets under his skin that he feels is worth doing a quick video like this.
Plugging tires not being legal anymore may very well be a state to state thing. Or maybe I’m simply misremembering what I thought I heard at some point.
ETA some very quick (and not very thorough) googling tells me that plugging tires isn’t illegal. That seems to be an urban legend. Possibly based on most tire companies telling mechanics not to plug tires anymore.
Also, I’m talking specifically about those plugs that you shove in from the outside without needing to dismount the tire. Not the plug/patch combination.
I got a tire plugged just last week, in CA. He took it in the back of the shop to do, so I didn’t get to see the details. In this case, the tire never actually went flat, it just lost about 8 to 10 lb. of pressure – and this was, apparently, after at least several hundred miles of driving with the nail in it. So I don’t think this was a case for rubber sawdust inside.
Okay, I just found and read an article by a law firm on the subject. They say emphatically that a proper tire repair requires both plugging and patching (including a careful inspection of the interior of the tire), and that either plugging or patching alone is hazardous. The article goes into some detail on how the process should properly be done, and includes anecdotes about some gruesome accidents and multi-million dollar judgements resulting from inadequate tire repairs.
Running on a flat tyre I would be more concerned about damage to the side walls than what plugs are legal.
A weakened or damaged sidewall may not be visible just by looking, but if the damage is there it can blow out any any time.
Why not swop it for the spare and only use it in emergency. Or at least put it on the back so in the case of a blow out you might still have some control of the car.
TPMS is not made as a flat alert or blow out alert system but more for letting you know that a tire is below a certain point in pressure and is better for slow leaks. The sensor in the tire sends a radio signal every so often which the car picks up and reads.
I forget the way the sensor exactly works but IIRC when the car is started it waits for the sensor to respond. Till it gets the signal, if the light was off, it stays off, if it was on the car lights it. When the car gets a signal for all 4 wheels it adjusts the light as needed (or perhaps will light if it gets at least one ‘low pressure’ signal IDK). This getting the 4 wheels can take time and the car allows itself to ‘miss’ a signal a few times. The sensor somehow monitors if the car is in motion, either a kinetic sensor or more likely due to increased pressure and/or pressure fluctuation due to driving then starts pinging an OK or not OK signal that the car reads.
So there is a time delay between start up and when the car gets the signal. This can take some time and the car allows for some missed ‘pings’ of the sensor.
I think the TPMS needs some revolutions to become active, or the sensors only ping the car once in a while. So there can be a delay and 30 seconds may not be enough.
I believe the plug/patching issue may have some methods as illegal in europe, in the US it is more liability that has shops doing both patch and plug.
Also some methods are considered temporary by the manufacturer however they frequently don’t state how temporary it is. Is it to get you a 100 miles or so down the road so you can get to a tire shop or good till you remove the tire off the rim next when it should be properly repaired. Both will meet a definition of temporary, and tire shops will frequently repair a plug if they pull the tire and find it.
Assuming the OPs car has the spare mounted on the back (which most RAV4s do/did), this probably isn’t the case, but so many cars don’t come with a full size spare anymore.
I remember, back in the day, when we had to buy new tires, we could buy three tires, and use the spare, and then pick the best of the tires being replaced and make that the new spare.
Then in the 90’s, saying “my care didn’t come with a spare” implied it came with a donut. Now, saying ‘my car didn’t come with a spare’ means it actually didn’t come with one. My 2018 Honda came with a can of Fix-a-Flat, a 12v pump and a phone number for Honda’s Roadside service. It doesn’t make me terribly confident. But I know those of us who can change a tire on the side of the road are a dying breed.
My RAV4 does have a full sized spare, but it is a different brand.
I’m kind of torn between paranoid about a future blowout due to damage and thinking that the tire shop won’t miss any opportunity to sell me a new tire (I got mine at Discount Tire).
That’s what I was going to say; I have an acquaintance who manages a Discount Tire, and had taken a tire in for repair, and asked if it was a plug or inside patch, and he said it was both, actually.
I wouldn’t think 300 feet would cause a big problem; the tire shop should be able to identify any damage, and in fact have incentive to do so- if they can sell you a new tire, they’re going to play up any damage to your existing one.
Agreed. The tire is almost certainly damaged, I would not trust it for high-speed driving. But, as always, ask a professional.
BTW, I was amazed by Bullit’s post with the tire repair set. You could do that on a farm for tractors and trailers that seldom go on pubic roads, but I would not trust such repairs anywhere else.
You can buy a smaller version of that kit and literally any auto repair store. Back when I used to, for whatever reason, seem to pick up nails on a much more regular basis (like 4 or 5 times a year), I kept one of those kits on hand. I actually just threw it out a few months ago. You should be able to pick up a small kit with just the reamer, plug inserter 4 or 5 plugs and possibly some rubber cement for about five or ten dollars. Most of the stuff in that bigger kit you’re never going to need (ie 12 valve stem covers, a bunch of valve cores etc).
I’ve been driving for almost 25 years now, and I’ve only had one blowout, but it was a very scary experience. I was doing about 75 on I-294 when it happened and, thank God, I had both hands on the steering wheel. Even so, the left front blowout pulled me violently to the left. Fortunately, I was in the left lane, so I entered the breakdown lane instead of hitting another car. Even so, my left wrist hurt for a week.
The moral: If there is even a slight doubt, get tires!
It’s probably just fine as long as it’s true that you only drove it a few hundred feet. If the tire, in fact, was slowly deflating over time, you didn’t notice because the TPMS sensor is faulty, and you only noticed when it went completely flat, you could have done far more damage. In that case, the tire might be done for. How certain are you really that you only drove it underinflated that short distance?.
Yes. They can dismount it, inspect it, and repair it properly if possible. They may recommend a new tire, in which case, I say spring for it. Tires are important.
I agree with this but that kind of damage seems unlikely as long as the OP really only drove on the flat tire for 300 feet. That type of breakdown takes heat and time and I don’t think 300 feet is far enough to cause that kind of damage. The hard part is knowing whether the OP’s recollection is perfect.
