Heavy-Duty Tubeless Tire Repair Kit by Victor (part#22-5-00106-8)

Comments about Victor Heavy-Duty Tubeless Tire Repair Kit:

I used this to repair a nail hole in one of the tires on my Buick. After putting another couple hundred miles on the tire after the repair, it seems to be holding just fine. No pressure loss. It was pretty easy to do the repair....just clean the hole, then push the plug through the hole and pull it out quickly. It took a little muscle, but nothing serious.

Comments about Victor Heavy-Duty Tubeless Tire Repair Kit:

easy to use but if u dont get the plug right in there the first try it can get alil sticky and gummy trying to force the plug.

Comments about Victor Heavy-Duty Tubeless Tire Repair Kit:

I originally bought this kit several years ago after taking a tire with a screw in it to the local gas station to have the hole fixed and observing the mechanic use a kit just like this one to do the repair (and then charge me over $20). At that point I realized that there wasn't any special skill or trick involved to do the job. Recently I bought another kit as I used all the plugs in the original package.

This kit isn't for everybody. You need to be willing and able to remove the tire/wheel from the car. And then if the object has been in the tread a while and has worn down so it's hard to find, you'll need to do some detective work with a hose or water to locate the leak from the tiny air bubbles. Also, you need needle-nose pliers, vice grips, etc. (and some muscle and determination) to dig into the tread, grab the nail or screw and yank it out of the tire (this part of the process can take 10 minutes or more and can be frustrating).

But beyond that, it's pretty straightforward. Once the object is removed, just use the rasp to clean the edges of the puncture, thread the plug (really just rope with sticky goop on it) through the eye of the insertion tool, plunge the plug into the hole, and then pull the insertion tool back out. Refill the tire with air using a compressor or electric pump or gas station air hose, check the pressure, and you're good to go. Check the pressure again the following morning to make sure it's holding.

The only problem I ever had with this kit was on one tire that still leaked a bit after the plug was inserted, so I pulled the plug back out, doubled it up, and stuck it back in again. It held after that.

If you're the paranoid type, you can take your tire to a tire shop or gas station, have the tire removed from the rim, have the hole patched from the inside with glue and a piece of thin rubber, and then have the tire remounted and rebalanced. But that's some major $$$, and I'd just as soon not have the local gas station handling my expensive rims on their old beat-up tire mounting machine.

Some words of warning: this kit is for tread punctures only; if your puncture is in the sidewall, then take the tire to a competent tire shop to have them decide whether the tire can be salvaged or needs to be replaced. A tire with sidewall damage can suffer a catastrophic blow out.