OK folks - started looking at various bits and pieces tonight and the bottle of puncture repair fluid had a best before date of 10/09…now as the product seemed to American branded does that mean Sept 10 or Oct 09? Guess the latter.
However as I’m off to Spain soon - need some advice - should I replace the bottle of whatever it is?
Why would it have a best before date?
Looked on tyres forum and no mention of it - but I’m sure someone will feel free to comment!
Cheers!
To be on the safe side, and save some dosh, you might want to look a the Holts Tyreweld product, available from all good accessory shops and Halfords - I got 2-for-1 at Halfords a few weeks ago.
http://www.holtsauto.com/products/group/repair-and-maintenance/tyre-repair
Yorkie, Don’t forget with some of this repair glupp you cannot repair the tyre after you have used it, but I am sure there is another product repair kit were once used you can repair the tyre, what I am saying is have a good look round first.
Alan
I’d be really interested in anyone who’s actually used tyreweld or similar in anger - I’m a bit sceptical but would love to hear from someone who’s successfully used it…
I used it on a 140mph motorbike. It had a half inch long gash in the tyre, and after some comedy leaking and squirting out of the hole, it was fine. I rode to the dealer for a new tyre at 50mph and the bike felt pretty much as good as normal, and certainly not a dreadful as it felt with a flat.
I have a can of the gunge in both my cars as neither has a spare in it (and one of them would need two spares as the front and rear tyres are very different sizes).
This is not strictly the case, you can still repair a tyre that has used the goop, but it needs to be cleaned first. I had a puncture two weeks ago and used Tyre Weld to get me home. I used the goop as per the instructions and then pumped up to 28psi with my cigar powered compressor. I first checked with the RAC that this would be ok. I then went to my local Independent tyre fitter (Swift Tyres, Penwortham) to get the tyre looked at. He was not best pleased when he heard that there was goop inside, and explained the procedure. The inside has to be washed out, this takes about 4 hours of immersion. then the tyre has to be scrubbed. Then the puncture can be repaired. For all this he charged me £5. Pretty good I thought. One thing to remember is that you MUST mark the puncture site with either paint or some sort of marker so that the garage can see where the hole is!
Further to this…
You used to be able to buy some stuff that the army use for armoured cars etc. This is put in BEFORE the tyre has a puncture and will even stop the tyre deflating if you run over a stinger! As you can imagine, it has now been withdrawn from sale.
The good old Dunlop Denovo run-flat tyres had this type of thing. The wheels were specials that were made for the tyres and they had no bead - they were a split-rim that was assembled onto the tyre. Inside the tyre was about an inch of goop stuck to the inside of the tread. If you got a pucture most people just never noticed as the seal it pretty much instantaneous. Unfortunately they were a metric wheel and Dunlop don’t make the tyres any more so if you’ve got a Mini 1275GT with Denovo wheels you’re stumping up for a set of wheels and tyres when it comes time to change. I haven’t actually seen a set of Denovos in years so I suspect they’ve all gone the way of the dinosaur by now.
Iain
I remember those! Really good idea. probably went the same way as the everlasting lightbulb!
Motorcycle puncture repair kits work on a different principle. The likes of BMW supply a tool to make the puncture hole a regular shape/size, mushroom shape plugs to fill the hole and glue. This seems a much more sensible idea but there must be some technical reason why this can’t be done with cars.
only used tyreweld once, but as i had ripped a large hole from the inside tyre wall it just fizzed out of the hole in a rather unattractive pile on the road.
i still carry one though in case i get a conventional puncture. 
I have seen the RAC do this to a mates bike, good idea. The mushroom is pushed in through the hole and then expands like an umbrella in the inside. We could do with for cars, I agree.
Yes I used it on a friends Astom Martin DB 9 this car being a posh ford has some as standard in the boot, so he was traveling down the A1 near sctoch corner and had a number of cars flash him the nsr tyre was smokin, he pulled over and we found the tyre glue pluged it all in and tried to blow up his ultra low profile tyre up no bl–dy chance it spewed out all over the car and the road bieng ultra low profile the tyre was completly knackered, so he to call AM breakdown out who could find him a tyre untill the next day so they recovered him and his car back to Newcastle safely parked the car up and put my mate up in a hotel in Newcastle all expenses picked up by AM and new tyre fitted the next day, know that after service for you, so tyre glue does not work on AM DB9 untra low profile tyres. BUT worked ok on my company car Ford S Max but then had to have new tyres later that day, but if you have run a tyre flat its knackered any way.
Alan
You can still buy UltraSeal. When I dropped the run-flats on the Z4 (the rears would have been similar size to AM’s), I had it done, had a puncture on one, and you could see it coming out the hole until it sealed, but, it did the job nicely, without losing too much tyre pressure. Carried a little compressor and tyreweld as a backup too (they’re supplied with the M variants of BMWs.
Was thinking of getting it done to the MX5 so I could dump the spare in the boot.
How does having this stuff in the tyres effect road handling and grip etc? Might be worth the try to insure my tyres stay strong.
I never notice the UltraSeal, doesn’t appear to make any real difference - and the car’s been pushed to the limit (and occasionally past it!). Only thing to point out would be without some form of pressure warning system, you may not notice you have a puncture for a while.
As regards having tyres repaired and so on, I’ve never been a fan of having a tyre repaired, especially on higher speed cars - I’d rather go for a new tyre. Basically I like the UltraSeal as it allows you to keep going without the hassle of having to change a tyre and get it replaced as soon as is convenient. As a lot of modern cars don’t have spare tyres, it’s becoming more and more common to have the repair foam option anyway. Another advantage of UltraSeal over the TyreWeld type option is you don’t have to faff about deflating / reinflating the tyre to get it into the tyre, which could be a pain in the backside at the side of the road - and possibly rather dangerous if you can’t reinflate the tyre…
I believe the situation is:-
Mazda kit - cannot repair if used, if if tyre would have been repairable had you not used the stuff
Holts kit - can repair, assuming it would have been repairable anyway if you see what I mean, and there’s an arrangement with one of the tyre suppliers - maybe Nationwide, but check on the tin.
Ultraseal looks interesting, but when I look at adverts for it I get a little confused over what a “kit” consists of!
I straight terms, what do I need to get for a car? If I buy a “kit” do I get a big container with loads of the product, and the means of injecting it into the tyre?
And - what happens when I replace the tyre - when they take the old tyre off, is there a bit of a mess to sort out?
Thanks for the advice…I went to Halfords and got a casn of Tyreweld for 16" and bigger - double checked with chaps in stores and they reckon one can will easily do 17" wheel. I must say I feel more secure knowing I have both solutions on board…I just hope I don’t need either. Not a bad investment for £9.99 at the moment.
if like me you have a warranty and roadside recovery would you bother with the tyreweld stuff?