I plugged tires for a living all through high-school and early college. I've never had a ORANGE plug leak on me. Not one. I even double plugged some gnarly holes just to see if I could get it to seal.

I can't tell you how many hundreds of plugs I've done, over thousands of miles, and track days, on bikes, cars etc. Never had an issue. I have had patches come loose. Rare, but it has happened. I have less faith in patches, and they are a pain in the ass to do.

Note I specify orange plugs. The black ones are shit, they're not as gummy and they almost always leak. Buy orange plugs.

I don't like plugs. If the hole is small enough, I use the vulcanizing string and rubber cement. If larger, I will have a local shop plug and patch, but either tire will not see high speeds or severe service until it is replaced.

Orange plugs? I've never seen orange plugs. In the glovebox of my cars you'll find a walmart tire plug kit with the "shit" black plugs which I've been using for 15 years now on everything from my crotch rockets to lawnmowers, cars, even drag slicks. This is a stretch, but MAYBE saw 3 tires that were too far fucked to plug.

That plug device Joe posted is very interesting to me, so I ordered one.

Fancy way to say "plug."

Go to google, search tire plug, and images. Over half the images are of plugs, that happen to be orange. Any parts store sells them. I think they are sometimes specified as "heavy duty."

Where I worked 2 dozen plugs was a slow day. Sometimes we would run out and use black plugs. Just holding them in your hand you could feel they were less sticky, and we would often have to re-plug them or the customer would come back a couple days later complaining of a leak.

Just sharing my experience. I'm sure black plugs could work for some, but I've done a metric FUCK-TON of plugs in my day, and the orange ones are worth their weight in gold.

Not doubting your experience at all, have just never seen them before.

Might pickup a couple of those, too.

This is a tire, douche. Not a weld, not a threaded hole, and not a radiator hose. I offered some facts about what a major tire distributor said, it was not meant to start arguments.

I brought the tire in and they patched it for free. They could've used any method they wanted. Happened twice, once when I had bought tires there, although I didn't show any paper work to prove it, and another time when I brought in my dad's truck tire, which had tires on it bought in the stone age.

I don't think any speed will upset a plug. It's a piece of rubber infused fiber, coated with rubber cement and jammed into a small hole for a super tight friction fit... never come out if done right. Then with the patch also inside, I would say you are perfectly safe.

During college, I worked at a service station along a highway. Used to plug tires all the time using the orange rope plugs. I always told customers to take it easy at first so the plug can vulcanize to the tire's rubber. One day a biker on some super ricer crotch rocket whatever pulled in with hole in his rear tire. I plugged it and gave him the schpeel. He proceded to do a burnout in the parking lot and said "that's good enough" and tore out of there.

the 100% correct way (when taken into a shop) is a plug patch. when installed correctly, it'll last the life of the tire without problem. reaming the hole makes it the correct size for the brand of patch plugs. cement is used on the shaft and the patch. the area under the patch must be scuffed with the appropriate tool for the patch/cement to hold properly. once installed the patch must be covered with a blk. butyl rubber compund to replace the butyl rubber inner liner that was sanded away by the rasp used on the area under/around the patch. all tires have a butyl rubber liner inside and THAT is what holds the air in your tires. NOT the rubber tire/tread/carcass! that's why if you ever use fix-a-flat, it's temporary. if you've left some in there for a long time and removed the tire, you'd see a brownish film inside along with the fix-a-flat (looks like old condom mixed in). what happened was that solution ate through the butyl rubber liner, now the tire will have a slow leak forever. anyone that has ever had a real drag slick knows this as the tires on their dragster will go flat in a couple weeks sitting in the garage. they don't come with the liner. that's also why hoosier, mickey thompson, etc.. drag slicks are offered with tubes. you don't have to run them, but the tires will seep out air constantly without them. the plug is an important part of the repair also. without it, water will get under the patch, but worse, it will get into the belt package rusting it out from within. when those steel belts rust and break, you have tires with big ol' lumps in the tread area, tread separations where the tread actually starts falling off the belts, and ultimately, blowouts.

if fixed properly, you should have no problems taking that tire up to it's speed rating.

^^^ Very clear. Thanks.

Somebody used to work at a tires shop :)

spoolin2bars nailed it. The one problem with the "string" plugs is that water can also migrate through the string and contaminate the steel belt...aka rust. Rubber plug and patch or combo unit (plug and patch unit in one).

Americas Tire here in Camarillo did the same plug/shave/patch on my 4Runner a few weeks ago. It was free of charge, and my wife said it was probably the nicest automotive related experience she's ever had. The tires are some horrible fucking chinese pieces of shit from the previous owner that I can't wait to replace, but they've still got about 15k good miles on them.

In any case, it'll be damned hard not to go to Americas Tire for my next set of rubber on my regular cars.

yeah, they're the west coast division of discount tire. That's actually one of the ways they became a giant in the tire industry. The founder would do a free tire repair or rotation for anyone whether you bought tires from him or not. Policy they still continue in some regions. He's still alive and its still a family owned buisness despite doing over a billion a year in sales!

Rope is fine for a get-you-back-on-the-road solution. For high speed highway and track use I'd prefer to see a "mushroom plug" or patch installed.

Thank you very much

And thank you very much.

Losers. Everyone else is losers. Told you patches were the way to go.

Plug patches are the only way to go... If you've ever seen one done or done one yourself you'd realize they're not going to come apart or harm the tire... They cost more, and take longer to do but are worth it... I worked at a Sears tire store for a while, and thats what they used exclusively. I've known several people that have run them at autocrosses and the track w/ no incidents... In fact, our 275 hoosier A6s ate a fucking hood pin at the first event we ran them at... plug patched and that tire is fine now (hood pins make monster holes btw)