Rear puncture

Damn. My Trident's rear tyre (Bridgestone BT020) has punctured, albeit a
slow one. It's got less than 4000 miles on it, loads of tread and not much
squareing off. I'm having a new one fitted at the weekend, but a mate
reckons it's worth having the old one repaired and kept as a spare,
especially as the replacement is costing me 149 quid from my local dealer
(I was given a price of 117 quid by the GF's brother-in-law but it would
require a traipse from East Sussex up to West London to get it fitted).
Does the team consider a repaired spare a sensible option?

 

Not got spoked wheels then? It's definitely worth keeping. Why not just
get it fixed rather than buy a new tyre?

--
Krusty

'03 Tiger 955i
'02 MV Senna (for sale) '96 Tiger (for sale)
'79 Fantic Hiro 250 (for sale) '81 Corvette (for sale)

 

Thus spake Champ () unto the assembled multitudes:

Thanks all for responses so far.

It's just my habit to replace punctured tubeless tyres, that's all, because
I've always considered repairs on tubeless tyres to be inherently unsafe,
though I'm told they are very good these days so maybe my thinking is
outdated (rather like me ;-)

The dealer has already ordered the new tyre for me so I'm kind of obliged to
honour the contract now anyway. I've got a garage and workshop so no
problem with storage space.

 

Yes

 

Thus spake The Older Gentleman () unto the assembled multitudes:

Thanks.

 

What?
Ffs, just repair the first one and ride the bastard.
What do you think's going to happen, it will blowout and kill you at the
first bend?

 

No. And whatever tyre monkey told you that was bullshitting you - that's
another common tale from the rubber wankers. That, and tyreseal goo.

 

Thus spake () unto the assembled multitudes:

Update: There was a bloody great big nail in the tyre, all curled up inside
the hole. The dealer's (the long-established John Harris Motorcycles,
Crowborough) honest opinion was that it wasn't safe to repair. Bear in
mind that I'd *already* paid for a new tyre and he had nothing more to gain
other than the cost of a repair job, so I thought that was fair enough.

 

Nice when that happens, for 'spending money I wasn't intending to
spend' values of 'nice'.

 

Hi Andy,
A proper tubeless repair is virtually as good as original, proper
being the important bit. The Michelin kit used to say up to three
repairs could be made, but H&S and Risk assessment might have changed
things, without loss of tyre integrity.

The best way(should be the only way) is to have a plugged patch
fitted. To do this the hole must be reamed to the size of plug, there
used to be two sizes a 3mm and a 6mm, then the inner surface of the
tyre has to be skurfed to provide a good clean key for the "glue".

Tyres with damage to the side wall should be binned, no questions.
Side walls can be damaged by nails or what-have-you's chewing up the
side wall as the tyre deflates, so be warned and always check for
secondary damage.
Also don't be fooled into thinking that the great big nail is the only
thing to cause a puncture, quite often there are more nasties as well.
From memory the most I pulled out of one tyre were three, so check
well.

I feel that some fitters are not prepared to spend the extra couple of
minutes to do the job well, but then the older generation never does
not think much of the youth of today. Or it could be that there is
more profit in a new tyre, and no, even slight, risk of a come-back.
T.W.
long since retired, so things might have changed.

 

Thus spake the wizard () unto the assembled multitudes:

Thanks for the useful info, T.W. - you'll see from my follow-up that the
damaged tyre was apparently irreparable, but I'd already paid for a new
tyre anyway so the dealer was being honest; either that or lazy ;-)