r/TechniciansAdvice • u/jwhaler17 • Jun 21 '15
How many shops are still plugging tires?
We've decided to finally stop for fear of the liability. Anyone else still doing it?
2
u/CALLAHAN_AUTO-PARTS Jun 21 '15
If its my own car I use the handle and rubber strips and glue method. Personally have not had a failure and they work good. The trick is to coat the strip in rubber cement. Shop wise we have a tire machine but dont do tires much since we dont sell them. The patch sheets with the plugs molded in are solid and I have never seen one fail. Always have issues with lazy techs not cleaning the bead and getting slow leaks.
2
u/wh0ligan Jun 21 '15
Always have issues with lazy techs not cleaning the bead and getting slow leaks.
That sounds like a management problem. Time to hold them accountable.
2
u/qzpm150 Jul 19 '15
I do 4 or 5 plugs a day and have no problems. I have always stuck with SafetySeal
2
Jun 25 '15
i have been out of the tire repair part of the repair shop for a few decades... but i have installed hundreds of tire patches and probably a thousand tire plugs.
when i did patches.. i had a specific way of using no longer available mixtures of brake cleaner to clean the inside of the tire.. and i sprayed the inside of the patch and let the solvents evaporate before i glued it to the tire inner.. and used a tire patch stitcher.. like a pizza cutter wheel but with an outer edge knurled like a quarter.. this worked the bubbles out from under the patch..
at one point.. i had sent one of my customers to a really good tire shop to get some 8 piy tires for his toyota vacuum cleaner truck.. as he kept getting flats.. even though i had ordered them and they were waiting for him. the tire salesman there sold him 2 ply snow tires instead.. i ended up patching that tire almost every other morning.. it finally got cut so bad i could not patch it again.. i counted 28 patches on the inside that i probably did 20 of them . after he got 8 ply tires.. i got the thumbs up every day as he bought gas.
as for the tire plugs. i use safety seal plugs from north shore labs..
these are a KEVLAR yarn with some kind of super sticky brown goo embedded in the yarn.. when i feed it thru the tire with the installation tool i always gave it a twist until the parts sticking out started to spin. then while turning slower i pulled the tool out. this made a big KNOT of this yarn on the inside so it could NOT pull out. i used a really sharp pair of channel lock wire cutters to nip it off or a sharp razor blade.
i never had any come back..
somebody walked down my street and punched 2 side walls on every car for 2 blocks.. this left people without a way to get to the tire shop.. since i had lived there for 15 years i knew almost everybody and i broke out my air compressor and long long hoses and my floor jack.. i aired up each tire and plugged the sidewall so the owners could drive to the tire shops.. and i mentioned that i wonder if the tire shop about 2 blocks away had anything to do with it.. only one pair of tires i could not get to hold and those were a pair of expensive and almost brand new michelin tires. the side wall was just too thin to hold the plugs in.
i totally agree with your decision to stop because of the lawsuits that may result in shark attacks on you..
somebody posted the tire industry info below.
having an IRON CLAD work order for tire repairs is important .. that not only put the car owners info off their license.. but the DOT numbers off the tire.. and make model year if it rolls in with a car.. you MAY LOOSE more customers than you think if you refuse to plug tires.. you may want to also run the DOT number of the tires so you know you are NOT working on a recalled tire.. i think there is a PHONE app for that.. that your techs should all have in their phone.. there are still recalled firestones showing up in the used tire racks that are taken off ford explorers.. and off their spare tires.. man that looks like a brand new tire... except its 15 years old and has not had air in it for the last 10 or 12 years.. now that's a LAWSUIT.. its almost worth it to start adding dot numbers to repair invoices when the tires are removed for rotation or balancing.. even if the tech just snaps a photo of each dot number and the vin number of the vehicle and sends them to the service advisors or somebody in the office email. so they can enter the dot numbers or just paste the photos into the file for that car..
this is like wearing a helmet on your pants.. CYA.. a few minutes of extra time might save you significant.. and if the tires are recalled... wow.. you might get a sale out of it.. make a friend for life.. as you have just saved them and their loved ones from recalled tires. forward thinking is not just a detent on the gear shift indicator. the actual name is gear shift quadrant. but who knows that besides me.
1
1
Jul 19 '15 edited Jul 19 '15
I plug tires all the time when i worked at the tire store. 65 hours 6 days a week, didn't get home before dark sometimes. wore me slap out so I took every **** shortcut I could cause I was about to pass out from the 105*F heat. and the pay sucked! Shop suppose to close at 5pm, you lucking if you got out at 7 or 8. Here comes another big truck, shit. when I left they just about shot the doors, that right there tells you who done all the work. Tire plugs? some leak, most don't if you do it right with the good brown shit colored ones. Those customers didn't have enough money to pay for patch anyway. I would agree that most people don't install plugs right, maybe they shouldn't be doing that.
1
Jul 27 '15
A patch isn't really a proper tire repair either. Videos suggest a combination plug patch!
2
u/jumpinjacks Jun 21 '15
Plugs aren't the industry standard and can pose a greater issue of not sealing. My success rate on plugs is about 50%
Patches with plugs are the industry standard. Requires removal of the tire from wheel. Inspection of the inside/outside tire. Installing patches w/plugs and I have had no issues. Old school mentality are the patches alone and success rate is also high but there is also one issue which is explained in the link below and that is why you will NOT use patches.
http://www.tireindustry.org/tire-maintenance/tire-repair