Dealing with Flat or Leaking Tires Advice Hello everybody, I am here to talk about for the most part, leaking tires, more directly punctured leaking tires. Now, we are not talking about tires leaking air through the nozzle, but rather, tires getting poked in its rubber and air slowly leaking out there. What a bitch! Worry not a lot, because with these instructions studied, you should be done with tire repair within a few hours (wait time excluded)! Oh yeah, you might need to look around for the occasional mishap before you drive out the lot. It's easier than parking into a hazard at least. 0. Before anything else, you will need some money as the solution is usually costs a low fee of around $20.00 dollars estimate. No, your credit card will probably will not work as there are times when the establishment will not be in your benefit. That means try to leave some money at hand in case should your car stops operating during a lack of cash supply. That's a habit I swear to take. Make sure to have a (scissor design [because it's small]) car jack, car jack wrench, and a wheel nut wrench always ready at hand. Another habit is to make sure that you always park in a clean enough lot, particularly in gas stations with air/water pumps. If you know that place got a lot of ill repute in crime (wars), chances are that there's gonna be some strong tacks/nails ready to insert itself into one of your tires. So yeah, just go to a good place and of course, have a good manner to stray away from bad publicity against your very person and property. 1. Okay, you did step 0, and of course, there comes a time when you have to park somewhere with tacks/nails managing to get your tires leaking/slumping/flat. Okay, no 100% guarantee, I get it. Hopefully, you got money to resolve this situation much later, but first, we need to get that problem to the situation, namingly your leaking tire. Step 1 is usually just checking to see if air leaks out of suspected tire, which needs to be wet with a water hose (, the other method is that your air pump period leaves you with that [stuck/loose] tack/nail leaking air from your suspected tire [this is the paying way]). It's a bitch, I know. 2. You see, your tire, slumping, especially after air pumping. You got a problem in your hand, son! Make sure you are parking on a near flat surface so that your car jack won't fall over and fuck up your tire disassembly/assembly progress. 3. Put a brick behind each tire except for the leaking tire in question (you will move that tire around!). Put another brick in seesaw style for the back tire counterpart of any front leaking tire. There's a lot of pressure on that back tire should the car jack fail you, right? Fucking things are supposed to help your car jack to maintain its stand. Lift maintenance to be explained in step 4. Bricks are sub car jacks, in which they go first and last in the disassembly/assembly process. Bricks are more for sloped parking, but they serve as back up car jacks and keep the car from moving out of control. 4. You will need your car jack and car jack wrench. Place it under the correct car jack frame alignment of the car. Make sure that you leave some space between the car jack and the leaking tire in question. That space is reserved for a multiple brick stack of four bricks and will serve as the back up car jack should your main car jack fail to maitain its lift and fall over. Once alignment is done, keep alignment of car jack frame between the car jack bits parallel. 5. Use your car jack wrench to sync with the current car jack position and turn clockwise (over right, under left) to lift the car's side. Continue lifting until you can see that the tire as been lifted off the ground. Get your wheel nut wrench and measure it onto the lowest tire nut. Make a turn measurement to see if the wheel nut wrench can turn in under position. If your wheel nut wrench is blocked by the floor surface, remove the wrench. You still got plenty more to go to lift the car's side for a bit. Repeat turn measurement checks after a good plenty car jack wrench's clockwise turns. It's going to be tough going, but you need to be steady and careful. Be glad that you have your bricks installed to stall the car from moving. Once your wheel nut wrench can freely turn underneath, you need to now use your multiple brick stack of four bricks for that reserved space. Should in any case that your car jack tilt and fall over with your other bricks failing to keep your other intact tires from rolling, that stack will save you the time to reset the car jack's height under the fallen car jack frame's height. It will also alleviate potential damage done to the leaking tire. 6. With the careful setup of step 5 complete, you may now use that wheel nut wrench to turn counterclockwise (over left, under right) to loosen the wheel nut. You might need body weight applied onto the wheel nut wrench. Maybe, two persons might be required. Once loose, continue turning counterclockwise to remove the wheel nut from the wheel. Hopefully, your progress in step 6 will not cause the car jack to fall over. Steady and careful! 7. Once you have all (five) wheel nuts free, place them in the car's back trunk for safe keeping. Okay, the hard part, carefully remove the tire from the wheel. Preferably by pulling and removing it from the wheel by flat parallel position. It's usually the safest way to go. Every effort must be within the sensitive limitation of the car jack's standing stability. That means don't shake up the fucking car! Don't shake it up! Otherwise, you have to reset the car jack and repeat step 5 again! Maybe realign the bricks as well! 8. If you make it this far, consider yourself a dexterous man! But the job's not done yet! Carefully remove the car jack wrench from the car jack's screw handle/head. Place the car jack wrench and wheel nut wrench in the car's back trunk as well! Well, I hope you have over $20.00 dollars, and someone to drive you and your leaking tire, because you gonna make a round trip searching for repair shops! Hopefully, you got the right connections and things will go smoothly as possible. If you don't want a repair shop visit, proceed to Step 9 anyways, but read on the second paragraph. 9. In the repair shop (if you haven't checked the suspected tire back in Step 1), the mechanic air pumps the tire and places it in a tire tub filled with water. This test will find out where is the damned tack/nail. He will put out with a plier and we will hear the air leaking hard. He uses some wine cork tool for tire leaks, in which he plugs into the hole with some rubber material. The rubber should fill that hole. Mechanic gets paid $20.00 dollars estimate. It's time to get that fixed tire back into operation? I dunno. Alternatively, if you have a tire plug kit and its rubber material (found at any local/corporate hardware store), you can fix the damned tire for yourself. And it can be quite easy (just don't expect to reuse the damn kit all the time)! First, you need to hose down your tire to find the air bubble leaks. Use the plier to pull out any stuck tack/nail. Apply rubber cement to reamer to prevent non-circular hole rupture by reamer outfitting. Insert reamer into hole and outfit the hole to a more circular shape (also for smoother rubber friction creation). Apply rubber cement around hole for easier tire string application. Insert tire string into eye needle of plugger. Coat the entire string with rubber cement. Insert plugger into hole until string is about 2/3 inside the tire. Pull plugger straight out quickly. Cut out excess string. Use the air pump at the gas stations to pump to about 3.5 of air pressure. In summer time, the air expands so it can be a bit excessive for your tire. Flat tire first, then other worn tires, and flat tire again in case? 10. If you are using a replacement tire, it's up to you whether you want to use the fixed tire. Just remember to get out all (five) wheel nuts, car jack wrench, and wheel nut wrench to either disassembly/assembly. For those planning to use the fixed tire, carefully place it back onto the wheel by flat parallel position. It's usually the safest way to go. Putting back the wheel nuts onto the tire, fit the wheel nut wrench and turn clockwise (over right, under left) to tighten the nuts. Carefully apply body weight to finish tightening the nuts. Every effort must be within the sensitive limitation of the car jack's standing stability. That means don't shake up the fucking car! Don't shake it up! Otherwise, you have to reset the car jack and repeat step 5 again! Maybe realign the bricks as well! 11. You have now got your tire back on operation. Now, for the car body. Remove the multiple brick stack of four bricks from the reserved space. Use your car jack wrench to sync with the current car jack position and turn counterclockwise (over left, under right) to lower the car's side. Continue lowering until you can see that the car's weight is no longer carried by the car jack and is carried by the tires. 12. Repair is almost complete so put away the car jack wrench and wheel nut wrench back in the car's back trunk. 13. As for the bricks behind the other tires except for the fixed tire, activate the car and drive forward slowly to give ample space in freely removing the bricks. Deactivate the car and remove the remaining bricks. Put away the bricks onto their original position. Sometimes, on the summer, the air pressure builds up so you have to loosen the airflow a bit. Congratulations, you have fixed your leaking tire, hopefully. --- At this moment, I have discovered the clinging adhesive property of the rubber material. Very sticky, pebbles can cling and make grinding noises. Might put tape over to prevent pebbles from clinging. Check your tire grooves periodically, when the grooves wear and tear, it means that your tire has run out of friction. It would be sliding more than gripping the surface floor. It's time to visit the auto repair/maintenance shop, no doubt about it! Frictionless tires cannot be repaired. Buy new tires, wheel alignment, and if necessary, brakes and rotors too. Costs quite a bit of one month's pay. Woo!!!