Leaky Alloys

[aidanbree]

I've got an old 1995 VW Golf and I suspect that the alloys need some attention as the tyres aren't holding pressure for long.

Anyone got any recommendations for a cheap repair in Glasgow? I'm in Clarkston. It might be as cheap buying new wheels??

Cheers

[vanordinaire]

I had similar with an old Skoda, I had no money at the time (hence the Skoda) so took of the tyres, painted the insides of the wheels with stove enamel (just because I had some in the shed) and put the tyres back on. It worked.

[battered]

It could just be a rim seal problem. You get it often with alloys.

If not then as others have said a coat of Hammerite (or similar) will do it.

[aidanbree]

How easy is it to pull back the rim to give it a go with hammerite?

[battered]

Impossible, unless you have tyre fitting gear.

Once the tyre is off, dead easy.

[aidanbree]

I'll take it to the local tyre guy and see if he can do this for me

[battered]

Ask his advice, they clean any grunge off the rim and then apply sealing compound, which goes on like paint. It just goes round the bead and 99% of the time this fixes it.

In most cases your problem is that the rim gets damaged by tyre fitting, driver abuse or just wear and you get corrosion starting where the tyre sits against the rim. After a while the surface is pitted with corrosion and the tyre no longer seals on the rim.

Most tyre fitters will charge for this, so make sure the tyre is worth it. You might be better buying new tyres in which case a rim clean and seal is part of the deal.

[Huff]

+1 to battered. Just note, if the rims had a few tyres fitted over the years, it's not just the actual bead-seat area that gets mullered - then the tyreseal can be ineffective.

If you go the DIY hammerite/paint route, with a sand-down first to smoothe pits, do the whole inner (hidden) surface of the wheel.

NB faced with this sort of annoyance on my Alpina (for the simple reason according to a wheel guy I trust, tyres had been repeatedly fitted from the wrong side of the rim) I had the set refurbed. Worth it to me, but obviously not universally worthwhile. OTOH, to go from 'losing pressure to undrivable in ~48hrs or less' to 'no discernable change in 6 or more weeks when checked' is peculiarly pleasing.

Edited by Huff on Thursday 9th June 20:05