71charger_fan

Today I found what was maybe a 3 penny finishing nail in the right rear tire of our '17 Z51. I dropped the tire and rim at the dealership. They called to say the nail was too close to the sidewall and it couldn't be patched or plugged. They said it would be $580 to mount a new tire. I said do what you have to do as I have the wheel and tire insurance. Without the insurance, I would have brought it home and plugged it myself. The nail was in the innermost groove.

seniorstorekeeper

Good for you by having insurance but if you had not had it and chose to plug it, I think it would have been fine. I had to plug one in the same area a while back on my wife's vehicle, and have plugged many of them over the years in the same area and have had no problem with any of them. Wouldn't want to plug one that was very much closer to the sidewall though.

71charger_fan

Honestly, I believe that I could have plugged it and it would have been fine. But, if they want to put on a new tire and charge it to the insurance, I will let them. I think that's the advantage of taking punctures back to the dealer that sold the insurance. The underwriter isn't going to say no to the dealer that sells its product. They'll take the hit to make sure that Fitzgerald Automall doesn't find another wheel and tire insurance product to sell.

Vetteman Jack

Good deal on getting a new tire. At least you got some of the money back on the insurance cost (even though you may have been able to just plug/patch the tire).

Tommy79

I agree with others as without insurance, I would have plugged it. But I would HATE to install a single new tire (unless it was the wife's car.)

I also believe that most tire stores would allow it to be plugged. Dealership, just wanted to sell a tire.

the blur

Plugging or patching that is fine for the highway. Race track is another story.

GSCE#456

Yeah if you’re pushing the car you don’t want to be running on a plugged / patched tire. Disaster just waiting to happen.

Zjoe6

Agree, the heat cycles being my biggest concern. That patch glue is probably not designed for tire temperatures reached on track.

71charger_fan

This is my wife's "I always wanted a Corvette" car. It'll never see truly hard use.

I never bothered buying jack pucks as I decided on day one that the dealership was going to do all the maintenance on this car. I didn't anticipate situations such as this. So, I have a set of pucks on order.

76-Vetteman

When I bought my 2014 I also purchased an extended warranty/insurance policy. It cover road hazard for the wheels and tires, and so I am sure sometime in the future I will require tire replacement due to road hazard.

A great point you bring to the conversation to have the dealer resolve your tire problem with the insurance package you purchased from them.

Skid Row Joe

What did you pay for the insurance?

eagleye

I bought the tire and wheel insurance when I bought my GS. It was not the GM package and it has paid a few times over the $800 I paid for it. The term is 5 years and I have had 2 cracked rims replaced, the other 2 rims were bent and they were fixed and I had a nail in the right rear that was replaced. It didn't cost me a dime, only time.

Skid Row Joe

With a heads up as to <most> GSes needing new wheels, that was a no-brainer @ ONLY $800.00.

Gearhead Jim

When we bought the Michelin AS3+ ZP winter tires for our 2017 Z51, I paid the extra money to get the road hazard insurance from Discount Tires.
With less than 30k miles on them, two have already been replaced because of hitting huge potholes or frost heaves on the bombed-out roads of Illinois.
Both times we were away from home but the nearest DT dealer did their best to get us fixed up and on our way, no issues except waiting a day for the new tire to arrive.
Both tires (different years) looked like this, but both were still holding normal pressure.

71charger_fan

We paid $1199. I've so far recouped about $535 of that. I'll have to find the original paperwork to find out how long the coverage lasts. I think it's 4 years on my Scat Pack Wide Body. We're at about 50 months of owning the Corvette, so it's definitely good for more than 4 years.