Was your flat repairable on the road? (Poll)

I am trying to decide if carrying a second spare is worth the room while traveling off road.

In many cases I love the term "If you have two you have one, if you have one you have none"

On the other hand a spare wheel/tire is a big load to carry, especially when fully packed from camping already.

I always carry a small tire repair kit with a good compressor, plenty of plugs, and plenty of rubber cement. I also can re-seat the bead on my tires with the gear in my truck, Just wondering what % of flats are repairable by these means (Or others).

Obviously the final decision is going to come down to terrain and planned travel miles but I would like to see what people's real world experiences have been.

So was your flat repairable by the side of the road (if you had to)?

--- By repairable I mean enough to get you home.

--- If you have had more than one flat, you can answer more than once.

 

If you are going wheeling and have the room for a 2nd spare it would not hurt to have, but for everyday use I see no need for a 2nd spare. I have had flats before that sliced open the sidewalls and no amount of plugs would have done me any good. On that note there are many new vehicle sold today with no spare tires, I hate that idea with a passion and would be out shopping for one.

 

Ive personally used tire repair kits that have lasted with no issue. Having said that, some garages will not patch a tire that has had a do it yourself plug put in. They say it damages the belts in the tire with the roughing tool and install tool, and it becomes a liability for them.

 

In my 16 years of driving I've had:

In my previous car:
1) Puncture by sharp pothole in the road. I drove slowly on the flat tire for half a mile to a tire shop. This is normally bad for the tire, but in my case the puncture was too close to the sidewall to be repairable anyway.
2) Flat caused by slow leak at the bead. I had a cheap no-name compressor in the car, so I just pumped the tire up to the max inflation pressure and drove the rest of the way to a tire shop near my home. The shop used a wire wheel to clean up the bead area of the alloy rim and re-mounted the tire.

In my Taco:
1) Puncture by a screw that didn't cause air to leak out, but the screw head was high enough to cause a vibration. Drove 2.5 miles to a Toyota dealer and got the tire patched. This was with my previous set of Firestone snow tires which I no longer run.

So in *my* experience, I've never had to even mount a spare by the side of the road. The same car had a dead battery once and overheated once (caused by a bad condenser fan), so in terms of failures that can leave you stranded, a flat tire would not necessarily be at the top of my list...

 

It seems I have terrible luck with tires as I seem to average 1 flat every year or so, I should not say anything because its been about a year since the last flat.

 

Now you've done it. lol

 

If you have the room, it's not a bad idea to add the extra spare tire. If you have the $$, you can get one of them tubular racks, a HitchGate, TireGate, etc... I bought a 2nd spare myself and take it with me on off-roading trips. In 150K of driving my Taco, I've only had a flat once and my plug kit came in handy. I even overinflate the 2nd spare to 90psi to use it as a backup source of air.

 

As I'm reading your thread you are asking if you should carry a second spare i.e. two extra tires?. It depends on where you're going. In the continental US I wouldn't carry a second spare, some places I've been overseas yes, I would carry a second tire. Tire repair is a skill you should definitely learn before you need it and you need to have the tools to do so. There's actually another thread going about which tire patch kit to carry.

 

Actually not specifically looking for opinions on the subject, although it doesn't hurt for everyone to throw there thoughts in, and I appreciate the input. I am just trying to gather some info on how often a flat tire is repairable.

I have a couple old timer friends who have been off roading a long time here in NV and they always carry two spares. Maybe they didn't have the ability to plug tires as we do now or maybe they did.. I on the other hand have always thought it was not absolutely necessary especially when I could use the room for other things.

 

I carry (in addition to the factory spare) a "large" (24oz) can of Fix-a-flat. Along with an air compressor, it will generally, temporarily repair most punctures that can be plugged. Having said that, my off road adventures generally avoid terrain that might slash or gash my rubber.

 

Well in that case then yes, I definitely recommend carrying a spare. Repairing a tire on the side of the road sucks, repairing one on the trail sucks way more. I've sliced a sidewall pulling off the side of a main road near my house before- I just didn't see a piece of jagged metal in the grass. The tire was trashed. I've also spent a month in Baja and never had a problem so you just never know when bad luck will strike. Remember too that wet tires seem to get damaged easier as well; it's easier to slice a tire on a rock during even a shallow water crossing than on dry ground. If you can figure out where the tire is leaking while it's still on the truck i.e. a nail stuck in it, then yanking it out, reaming and inserting a plug then reinflating is sometimes easier than changing tires but any more serious damage and you're going to have to pull the wheel of anyways. While you can sometimes patch a sidwall enough to get you back to a road, do you really want to go through unseating the tire, stitching, patching, and then reseating the tire or would you rather swap on another tire? Do you know how to break a bead, repair a tire and reseat a bead in the field (don't get upset, just asking; I have no idea what your skill level is). I know I'd hate to be on some of those trails out west with a repaired sidewall trying to limp my way back out.

What emergency tire plug kit do you all carry on the truck
Another option besides the one in the video that I've seen is to unseat one side of the tire, clear/fix whatever the problem was then insert a tube and reseat the tire. Again, it's an off-road only solution for slow speed travel.

Your call; just weigh your options and be careful out there.

 

Maybe this thread will jump-start a "dually conversion mod" thread on here somewhere?

 

I wouldn't off road without a spare. I've been keeping plugs, tools and an air compressor in all of our vehicles for years and have repaired many tires without ever removing the tire from the truck. But there have been times where the tire couldn't be saved and a spare was the only way home.

 

I've plugged many tires successfully over the years. Once I started pushing the truck harder in more remote areas I went to load E tires with a heavy sidewall. A screw or nail will still go through, but I no longer worry about rock punctures and lacerations. I carry 1 spare and have 2 more at the house.

 

Even though in 30 years of owning Toyota trucks with bfg a/t 10 ply e rated tires I've yet to have a flat I'd never drive without a spare.

 

For all the people who are saying they would not drive without a spare, I would never drive without a spare either, I am trying to decide if I should carry a SECOND spare, I.E. two spare tires instead of one.

 

Fifteen posts later & a poll (which didn't have anything to do with carrying a second spare) - if you want to, you should - if not, then don't.

 

Thats real helpful Why didn't I think of that myself.

Nowhere did I ask if I should carry a second spare.

If you read the thread you would see I actually was not asking for peoples opinions on the subject, hence why it was not part of the poll. I was simply trying to find out how often a flat tire is repairable roadside. That information would hopefully help me decide if I myself want to carry a second spare or not.

What are you anyways an online consultant for other peoples threads? If so your not very good.

 

Posts 4,7,8,11 - I read no consensus - this consultant wonders why you couldn't figure this out for yourself?

 

Figure what out?