Don't fall for this sales tactic at the tire shop.

Had this happen to me. Sales tactic or not, the problem is. Your loaded down have to make delivery. Now your inside garage or on side of road. You have a tire or set of tires on the ground. When you hear ahh boss we Cant/WONT fix that, and company policy is we cant/WONT put it back on. So now what?? I guess I could put it back on myself. But how do I tighten the bolts? It's not like in the 80's when a bottle jack and long handled 4 way lug wrench was standard equipment on the truck.

 

This is exactly why I will never run wide base singles again. Every time I pulled into a speedco they spent 30 seconds telling me why they probably couldn't repair the tire before they even knew where the hole was. Anywhere near the shoulder forget it and those tires seem to pick up a lot of nails.

 

I can send them in to our tire guy and have them do a section repair. (Less than $30) Good as new if the tire was not run flat.

 

They repair it by vulcanizing the hole in the sidewall. Tire shops cant do that.
When i get sidewall damage from a puncture i will keep the tire and stop it off at the local tire guy sends it to the recap factory. If its low on tread ill have them cap it while its there. 2 to 3 weeks later i pick it back up.

 

You could carry your own jack and breaker bar/ impact gun.

Personally i prefer to plug a tire to finish the trip then pull it off and fix it right once i get home. I just can't sit at a truck stop for 4 hours waiting for them to patch a tire when i can plug it and air it back up in less than 30 minutes

 

Not a bad tip.

What we hated were the good year tires with factory sidewall defects that show up after 20,000 miles. The last 12 we had in 5 years 2 remain. With bad tread pattern. Those will be replaced with a generic American tire that is adequate for Arkansas asap.

For what's its worth they did ok in bad weather and on ice because they were premium tires then. But you just cannot get the durability and miles out of them.

For heavy trucks I never had a Michelin fail. And I don't believe in recaps. Ive done my share of tire work and was actually trained on those back in school. I don't find it to my liking back then. But I understood how to balance repair and weight them things pre-computer days.

We have had a very bad year with pothole destroying the tires, alignment and so on several times over. We examined making a claim to either Little Rock or Arkansas Highways but precious little are paid out due to one loophole. The State intends to replace all pavement dating to 62 and prior. So that money is already committed in the mean time the damage comes out of our pockets.

It's also enough to choose carefully who you want for tires and related work. There are a handful of shops in the area that thankfully are very good because they have to be.

Once in a while I'll take a trip past Pep Boys in NLR and eyeball the expensive tires on the rack now and then. Almost a form of porn as it were. But it's not for us anymore. We just run on generic tires provided they have the necessary Government and DOT marked sidewalls with the correct ratings, nitrogen and temp/load capacity in addition to traction and treadwear.

Long ago I had a set of hard compound michelins on one of my cars equal to that used by the Maryland State Police. I think they were 100 dollars each backed by nitrogen gas shocks and sway bars of the time. My family spent some careful time making sure I am ripped a new one for buying one at 100 dollars instead of 4 for 100.

I tell you this. Those tires have managed to hold that car right where it needed to be when it needed to be. They have more than paid for themselves over and over again.

And you wonder why I don't listen to family anymore. As a parting thought for my first car, my pa was so cheap he put on 135 by 80's over 15's on the wheels. As soon a few raindrops hit the pavement and I needed a little more braking, she broke loose clean as if it was on ice. There simply isnt enough rubber under there to hold the road worth a ####. And they were so small at that time.

That's one of the reasons Ive gone the opposite way.

 

Last one on my trailer I had at the TA they told me they weren’t allowed to plug and I needed a new tire.
I said no thanks and air it up please.
I pulled out of the bay and in to a parking spot and then went in to the truck stop and bought one of there cheap ### tire plug kits.
I then plugged the tire and aired it the rest of the way up and ran it more than a year till the tire wore out.

 

I am also a trained mechanic who worked for several tire shops in my career. In my conversations with tire company representatives, not just some schmuck who happens to be on duty at his brother in laws tire shop, the rule of thumb is the repair must take place totally within the radial belts. And if you google an image of a cross section of a radial tire, the radial belt on large truck tires don't go all the way to the edge of the tread in most cases.
Any other repair would puncture the sidewall belts which do all of the flexing, and would likely fail.
Many tire shops now will not even consider repairing a steer tire. That is a legal/company issue, not an OEM tire determination.

 

Free tire for them ...and may get a "disposal fee" from you?

 

They like to measure tread depth from the wear indicator also...