How To Repair Cut In Tire Sidewall

Your tires might not exist the nearly circuitous part of your vehicle, simply they're arguably among the most indispensable. Keeping your tires in skillful condition is integral to both safe and operation, and then when they suffer harm, it'south of import to take care of it immediately. You're likely familiar with patching tires, simply are there limits to this practice? For instance, tin can you lot patch the sidewall of a tire?

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Tires have more going on than meets the eye. Over the years, tire technology has evolved to brand them stronger, longer-lasting and safer in various driving conditions. There are many parts of a tire, but the ii principal external parts are the tread and the sidewall.

The tread is what contacts the route. Information technology's very thick, it wears downwardly over time, and information technology's the part yous pay special attending to when you're watching out for alignment issues. Information technology is meant to wear downwardly, just evenly.

The sidewall is thinner because it is not designed to contact the road and wear down. It protects the inner plies of the tire, which are structural, and it flexes as the tire rotates and bears the weight of the vehicle.

Patching Your Tires

Many people go on tire plug kits in their vehicles for emergency roadside repairs, but patches are a lilliputian more in-depth. In lodge to properly install a patch, the tire must be safely removed from the vehicle and the rim. The hole or tear area must be cleaned up and covered with vulcanized cement then that the patch can be installed from the inside and sealed earlier the tire is reinstalled on the vehicle.

The patch adheres to the tire'southward fabric around the damage, and the added pressure level of inflation actually works to press the patch outward further plugging the hole. If washed correctly, this creates a seal that can last the rest of the tire's life. Patches are viable for repairing modest holes or tears, more often than not, those that are 1/four inch or less.

Fixing Damage in the Sidewall

If you accept a leak, hole or tear in your sidewall as opposed to your tread, yous should not repair it with a patch. The thinness of the sidewall gives fiddling material for a patch to adhere to, and the impairment to the sidewall leaves the tire structurally compromised. As mentioned before, the sidewall tends to flex, putting extra stress on the repair and increasing the likelihood of patch failure, which is more likely to occur at higher speeds and pressures.

Patching the sidewall is simply not a good idea, as a leak or blowout while the vehicle is underway could result in loss of control with catastrophic consequences. So if you stop upward with a damaged tread, you tin can plug and patch away, just if the damage is to your sidewall, you lot're going to have to supercede the tire, which commonly means replacing the fronts or rears in pairs.

So can you patch the sidewall of a tire? The respond is a solid no. Luckily, sidewall impairment is far less common than damage to the tread, and y'all tin can minimize it past paying attention to road weather, non overloading your vehicle, staying away from the curb when you're parallel parking, and keeping your tires properly inflated, rotated and maintained.

Cheque out all the tires, wheels and accessories available on NAPA Online, or trust one of our 17,000 NAPA AutoCare locations for routine maintenance and repairs. For more data on patching tires, chat with a knowledgeable expert at your local NAPA AUTO PARTS store.

Photos courtesy of Blair Lampe.

Blair Lampe View All

Blair Lampe is a New York-based professional person mechanic, blogger, theater technician, and speechwriter.  In her reanimation she enjoys backpacking wherever her boots will carry her, rock climbing, experimental theatre, a crisp rosé , and showering love on her 2001 Sierra truck.

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