Mr 74

Was driving home tonight and noticed the car seemed sluggish when I accelerated and was pulling to one side. I made it into the garage and noticed the left rear tire was very low, almost flat.

I filled it up with the compressor and could hear the air rushing out.

I found the hole in the tire. It is on the tread near the edge of the tire.

These are original SC tires and I was just on the phone today with Tirebuyer getting ready to order some NTO5s.

My question is what to do. It will be a few days before the new tires show up.

Should I use the tire flat stuff that is in the can ? Does that stuff really work?

Should I:
-use a floor jack and get the wheel and flat tire off the ground?
-Take it off the car when the tires come,
-have the tire replaced,
-put it back on the car,
-Then get the other tires replaced?

All comments welcome

Dave

OneCylinder

Unless I was stranded I wouldn't use any goop. If you want to use your z until the new tires come in, the best thing is to take the wheel to a tire shop and have them patch the tire from the inside. The remember you have a repaired tire and take it easy until you install the new set.

Mr 74

Thanks for the reply. I'm getting the tire patched. New tires should be here in 2-3 days.

Dave

Furiousone

Patch or plug, you'd be surprised how well they work.

4XLR8N

BTW - I installed a set of NT-05's last year and love 'em!

mwestc5

Have a couple of comments.

Never ever had a problem with a patch or a plug.
If done properly, once repaired you are done.
Even my track tire's.
But on track tires or a performance vehicle like yours I'd prefer a patch. On a performance tire/car a plug could potentially fail if your really driving hard and at high speeds and lots of tire abuse.

I've never had a patch fail on the track. Whether it was my 888's or Hoosier Slicks.

Regarding that goop.
I have 11 cars 7 being fun 2 seaters, a couple of C5's, Porsche, 300zx etc. A few regular cars and work vehicle. Even though I carry floor jacks in a few of the cars and I can change a tire pretty quickly, I carry plugs too and pretty adept at plugging a tire--no matter what..It's a PITA changing or plugging a tire. It never happens at a convenient time or in a safe place to do this stuff.

A few years ago I saw this tire sealant stuff(permaseal) similar to Slime on a Jay Leno Youtube. I had used Slime in my trailer tires and my tow vehicle. But, the thing about Slime is, it says it's Temporary. The stuff on Leno said it was Permanent. I contacted the manufacturer and bought 3 gal of this stuff. It's in all my tires. Whether it works or not, I don't know for sure because I have not yet had any flats. It's been over 2 years.

If the stuff works correctly, it should seal itself before you are ever aware that you had a puncture. Essentially. if id does it's job you should never know you ever had a puncture. Maybe the stuff works and maybe I've just been lucky.
Nevertheless it's in all my cars.

Mr 74

got home from work tonight ready to take off the flat tire. I re-read the posts on lifting and jacking one more time. Now, I am getting a little nervous as I dont want to damage the frame in any way.

my thoughts were to use a floor jack from the rear of the car, positioned on the rear crossmember left of center close to where it contacts the frame.

Q1. Is this correct?

Q2. Do I need to have a block of wood between the floor jack and the cross member?

Q3. Can I leave the floor jack in place while I take the tire to get plugged? Or should I place a floor jack underneath for added safety?

Q4. if I do place a jack stand, do I need to have a block of wood between the jack stand and the rear cross member?

All comments are welcome.

Dave

mwestc5

By now I'd think you've already taken care of this but if not:
See my comments within your message.