Tyres - Might Be Worth Checking

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Johnb

Johnb

Mar 17, 2020
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Many threads on the forum make mention of tyre life and the advice to change regularly on a time scale rather than wear basis.

I've just had a really strange issue related to tyres:

My van is 4 years old and the tyres are of similar age. Tread wear is probably about half - at a guess we've traveled around 15,000 miles - much in Europe during the warmer months.
We've been away over Christmas visiting family which meant we were not in the van for two nights/days. Pressures were checked before leaving home.

Returning to the CL after family visit I immediately noticed the nearside tyre was deflated. It wasn't flat since supported by the steadies!!!

I changed it for the spare as might be expected.

What intrigued me was if the tyre was "on its way" whilst towing then why did my Tyrepal not warn me. If the deflation only took place after arriving on site then that would have been extremely unlucky to pick up a puncture in a hundred yards of towing.

I didn't spend a great deal of time examining the deflated tyre - it was raining and said tyre was rather muddy.

Traveling back home the Tyrepal behaved quite normally which suggests the damage did indeed occur during the last yards of the tow and whilst on the CL.

Today I washed the wheel and tyre and closely examined it for the culprit. Expecting a nail or similar I was surprised to find no damage at all. Neither cracking nor a foreign body.

Next step was to try inflating the tyre. I reached around 15 psi which feels reasonably firm standing on the tyre and stopped the pump. Silence except for a slight hissing. I removed the pump and in so doing pushed the tyre valve to one side - immediately a rush of escaping air!

Bit of a long winded story so apologies for that but I would never normally check the valve, just tread and sidewalls.

Couple of things spring to mind apart from the obvious "Don't forget to wiggle your valve"

1. Pushing the valve to one side allowed a rush of air to escape. How fortunate was I for this not to have happened whilst towing. (Especially since the last mile or so is a narrow(ish) road that is also a rural bus route! Nearside wheel change means stopped away from verge so bus/tractor or car would need to wait - how much pressure would that be!)

2. Thank goodness I moved my spare to the front gas locker when the van was new. To have had to crawl around muddy ground and extract the tyre and wheel from beneath the van would have been - well, words fail me!. Working with a clean brand new spare made life so much more pleasant.

3. Although never used in anger before thank goodness for my Kojack. Small block of wood on the ground and jack secured - safe and quite quick lifting of van.

I'll check with the garage when I pick the wheel up what happened to the valve.
 
ProfJohnL

ProfJohnL

Mar 14, 2005
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Johnb said:
...
What intrigued me was if the tyre was "on its way" whilst towing then why did my Tyrepal not warn me. If the deflation only took place after arriving on site then that would have been extremely unlucky to pick up a puncture in a hundred yards of towing.

...

Traveling back home the Tyrepal behaved quite normally which suggests the damage did indeed occur during the last yards of the tow and whilst on the CL.
Click to expand...

Your logic is not quite sound. Your risk of picking up a puncture is vastly greater as soon as you turn the wheel. The nail on the road does not care how many miles or how old your tyres are, if you drive over it then you can expect a puncture.
 
Hutch

Hutch

Nov 16, 2015
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On my second outing in my first van, the tyre was deflated, after a stop at a Motorway service station. Same thing the valve stem was leaking.
When you think about, the centrifugal force on the valve stem although small, will flex the stem, especially on alloy wheels where the valve is almost at 90 ⁰ .
If you have room on your wheels ask, for the shortest valve you can fit.
 
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otherclive

otherclive

Nov 11, 2009
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I have had valve stem leaks on cars too. I did consider having the metal stemmed valves fitted to the caravan especially when tyre pressures were at 62 psi. But decided to stay with the conventional ones as the tyre pressures were within their specifications. Although they are used on motorhomes.

Wrt a puncture in the last few yards it’s quite conceivable that a puncture could arise in the last few miles and not be picked up by tyrepal, but slowly deflates the tyre over the time you were away from the van. But in your case it was the valve causing the loss of pressure.
 
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Buckman

Buckman

Jul 18, 2017
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We were on a site in France and had been for a day or two when we had a tyre explode on us. It sounded like a gunshot. The tyre had split. We were advised that there was a possibility that someone may have taken a knife to the tyre at some point.

On another occasion we were on an Easter rally in Weston Super Mare and on leaving I checked the tyre pressures on the car. In doing so a valve lite4rally fell apart deflating the tyre. Unfortunately we had to off load everything in the boot to access the spare and then wait for the breakdown company to arrive.

Another member of this forum who was there may remember the incident at Sandy Bay. :unsure:
 
Johnb

Johnb

Mar 17, 2020
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ProfJohnL said:
Your logic is not quite sound. Your risk of picking up a puncture is vastly greater as soon as you turn the wheel. The nail on the road does not care how many miles or how old your tyres are, if you drive over it then you can expect a puncture.
Click to expand...
Not sure what you are telling me here?

I wrote:

"What intrigued me was if the tyre was "on its way" whilst towing then why did my Tyrepal not warn me. If the deflation only took place after arriving on site then that would have been extremely unlucky to pick up a puncture in a hundred yards of towing".
Your risk of picking up a puncture is vastly greater as soon as you turn the wheel.
Click to expand...
The caravan wheels only turn in one direction - unless the wheel is coming off I suppose. Sideways forces will be significantly less than those experienced by the front wheels of my car. Why is the risk of a puncture in a caravan vastly greater when cornering then on the straight?
As for "turning the wheel" I imagine the car wheels turned a lot during a 4 hour tow!
The nail on the road does not care how many miles or how old your tyres are, if you drive over it then you can expect a puncture.
Click to expand...
I would have thought that statement was fairly obvious to most people.

For clarity let me put it differently:

Four hour tow and my Tyrepal detects no worrying change of pressure. (In actual fact pressure changed from 65 psi to 74 psi as the tyres warmed up. (And the temperature rose too!)

My presumption is that the tyre was sound up to this point.

I now turn into the CL and travel approximately 100 yds to my hard-standing. The route is a gravel road and I would have thought very unlikely to have a nail waiting for my tyre. However, the loss of air was not caused by a puncture so nails are not an issue - it was the valve seating not airtight.

When I noticed the flat tyre I assumed a puncture - something had made a hole in the thing - maybe a nail.

Since I had traveled for four hours with no problem according to Tyrepal it seemed extremely unlucky that the "puncture" happened during the last 100 yds of my journey!

I now know that my tyre valve had failed but thankfully waited until the very end of my journey. For that I am grateful.

However I'm still not clear where my logic is failing. Have I missed something obvious? I'm not quite sure why the caravan wheel, and I presume the rear wheels of my car, are less prone to a puncture than my front car tyres?

My most recent puncture - a nail - was in the LH rear tyre of my car. For all I know the front wheel drove over the same nail. Maybe I was turning but the rear wheel of the car was only turning on one axis.

Oh Dear - My head hurts.
 
Buckman

Buckman

Jul 18, 2017
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I think that when referencing "turn" in the post, the correct word would have been revolve as tyres obvious can revolve and turn in more than one direction.
 
ProfJohnL

ProfJohnL

Mar 14, 2005
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In the context of my previous post "Turn a wheel" simply meant begin to tow the caravan.
 
T

trevormonty

Aug 12, 2023
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The tyrepal sensor that attaches to valve maybe why valve stem failed in first place. Valve stems aren't designed carry any weight even 12g of sensor. NB the centrifugal force means it weighs considerably more than 12g at 60mph.
 
Hutch

Hutch

Nov 16, 2015
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trevormonty said:
The tyrepal sensor that attaches to valve maybe why valve stem failed in first place. Valve stems aren't designed carry any weight even 12g of sensor. NB the centrifugal force means it weighs considerably more than 12g at 60mph.
Click to expand...
That's the reason I mentioned using the shortest valve you can fit. My tyres and valves are coming Upto 6 years old and will be replaced this year, and the valves show not noticeable deterioration of the rubber.
 
Dustydog

Dustydog

Jun 20, 2005
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12 hours later after a150 mile tow tyre pal said zero psi. That bolt could have come from anywhere anytime.
 

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Gagakev

Gagakev

Apr 20, 2009
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Were the valves of "commercial wheel quality" ?
Only reason I ask is I had two tyres fitted on my drive by a local company (who we used for our lorries etc at work).
All went well until about 2 hours later when I was re-fitting the TP sensors when one started hissing, rang the company, where the manager arrived within 15 minutes, he took one look and said wrong valves fitted.
Called his fitter and valves where replaced with better heavy duty valves, you could clearly see the latter ones where of better quality and more robust.
I can only surmise that the additional weight of the sensor has something to do with the type of valve.
 
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Johnb

Johnb

Mar 17, 2020
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Just as a final comment regarding my tyre.

Had the valve replaced and wheel balanced - cost was £19.00. Included £3 for filling with nitrogen!
I must be out of touch with prices - seemed a tad high to me.

Asked if valves failed often and was told it's best to replace every 3 years! First time I've heard that I must admit and frankly my valve gets changed if it fails or whenever I replace the tyre.
 
S

Sam Vimes

Moderator
Sep 7, 2020
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Aircraft tyres are usually filled with Nitrogen as it's an inert gas and prevents auto ignition.

The inclusion of oxygen increases the risk of auto ignition if a tyre becomes overheated and gives off volatile gases.
 
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Buckman

Buckman

Jul 18, 2017
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otherclive said:
You go into a tyre depot that has nitrogen available. A great leap forward for car owners😂
Click to expand...
Many years ago I was told that due to the nitrogen molecules being larger less chance of the air leaking out. That is supposed to be the only benefit.

There was also another experiment with airless tyres which were okay up to speeds of about 50-60mph.

11w7t6x.jpg
 
G

gary

Mar 14, 2005
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I'm more inclined toward something in the tyre or poorly sealing rim causing a leak when the wheel and tyre happened to stop in that particular position for a lengthy time?
Cause being similar to pushing the valve sideways, had wheel stopped in another position it wouldn't leak.
As a matter of fact I've very recently got a replacement car with what looks nearly new tyres and they have all needed reinflating inside 3weeks, one of them twice!!
 
Johnb

Johnb

Mar 17, 2020
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Now all this is supposing that my tyre has actually been inflated with hydrogen of course! :sunglasses::sunglasses::sunglasses::sunglasses::sunglasses:
 
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Hutch

Hutch

Nov 16, 2015
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Johnb said:
Now all this is supposing that my tyre has actually been inflated with hydrogen of course! :sunglasses::sunglasses::sunglasses::sunglasses::sunglasses:
Click to expand...
Not a good idea. I hope you mean Nitrogen. 💥💥💥 Mind you you have to get your tyre Upto 536c.
 
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