Yeah, that sounds about right. I don't know if it's a lack of knowledge or what by some of these shops. I had the dealer for my wife's car tell me there was a nail and it couldn't be plugged...blah, blah, blah. he made it seem like a real emergency that I get it fixed. Being that it's my wife's car I asked for a quote. Long story short...got the quote, asked if I had warranty since the car had like 10K on it. Foung out I DID have warranty on tires and suddenly the is no emergency to get the tire repaired, they told me they didn't have a matched tire in stock and that it would take 2-3 days to get it. rant over! Go to Discount Tire, should be good to go!

 

Did a little inter-web search and now have formed an opinion.

NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is the group that publishes tire repair guidlines. Stike one, is it's our government. Strike two is that it has the name administration in it. Nuff said.

Tire stores and companies have a reason to error on the side of being conservative. The reason is called money. They've done a pretty good job of stating why a tire plug is not a proper repair and here it is, "Any repair attempted without removing the tire from the wheel is improper. Without inspecting the inside of the tire for hidden damage comes the risk of returning a weakened tire to service. Punctures in the tread area that looked repairable have revealed upon further investigation that the object that punctured the tire had been long enough to cut the tire's sidewall from the inside. Without dismounting the tire, the hidden damage would have been missed".

That's all theory and now the real world comes into play. As it turns out, the use of tire plugs is as hotly debated as synthetic vs dino oil. Generally, you have the guys that live in the world of theory and the guys who live based on their personal experience. Tough to find any real world experience that shows a tire plug that didn't work, or caused any type of problem.

Here's where I stand:

I believe that a combination patch and plug is the best repair, but the patch is usually not required.

I believe that you can repair a sidewall injury that is less than 1/4" in diameter, according to the chart below and that you should use a special patch to repair a sidewall. Bullseye is a great patch product.

I believe that worst case scenario in using a plug is that it leaks a bit. BTW, I've never seen on leak, but given that it possibly could, check it for leaks a couple of days after doing the repair.

I've probably got 5 plugs in my tires and no patches and no problems.

I think you're repair is not on the sidewall and a plug would be fine. Plug it, check it and if it's leaking take it in to get it patched. You can always add a patch after a plug has been installed.

 

Sounds like lawyers got involved and the whole thing went to hell in a handbasket.

 

PLUG IT!

 

Plug it right with a kit like the one Woods posted and the tire will last you its lifetime. I have at least one beef jerky strip in my tread that has lasted almost 40,000 miles.

 

I know this thread is a few months old but I just had to plug my mudder this morning. I had a 1 foot long pc of rebar in my tire... Dont know how that happened but the plug worked fine!

 

Nice one!

 

Plug it yourself with the kit and it WILL be just fine. A tire company will NOT patch that from the inside it is too close to the sidewall and the patch from the inside wont hold good. I used to work for Tire Kingdom... :-/