Deflating problem.

[gwaithcoed]

Hello everyone,




I have a problem with the tyres on my ford mondeo, they are constantly losing pressure.
The problem started about 12 months after I bought the car, which at that time was itself about 12 months old. They are alloy wheels and started to leak at the valves (metal ones). When I was ready to have new tyres on the front I requested that they replace the valves with rubber ones and also do the rear tyres at the same time.

After only a week or so one of the front tyres was almost flat when I got it out of the garage. Checked it and could find no problems so I blew it up again and it was fine for a while and then again one morning it was again almost flat.
This time I removed the wheel and still could find no reason for it to have deflated,so again blew it up and with the wheel on its side ran some soapy water around the tyre and rim and it was then that I saw there was a leakage in one place.
Went back to the garage, explained the problem, they removed the tyre and when refitting it covered the edge of the tyre with a rubber solution, explaining that this had to be done sometimes to get a good seal.
This lasted a few months and then began all over again and now I was losing pressure from the other wheels
Back to the garage but this time he spent time cleaning the inside of the rims which he said were rough(the garage owner is a friend of mine but lives in Staffordshire) and at the same time removed the other tyres and checked these,again refitting them with this rubber solution.
6 months down the line and I am back to where I started losing about 2 lbs PSI, sometimes each day , sometimes over a week.

Now having bored you with my problem is there anyone out there who can give me any advice on how to overcome this.
I know that there is a pressureised can that you can use if you get a flat tyre,would it be possible to put a squirt in each tyre, or does it all come out once you use it??? Or is there any other way other than replacing the four wheels???
Any advice would be helpful as it is driving me around the bend (on flat tyres )

Cheers Alan.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Alan,

I had this exact problem once (alloy wheels and Michelin tyres which I always use and have never had a problem with before). In my case various tyre "specialists" :roll: kept putting more and more adhesive gunge on the tyres and rims but they kept on leaking air (had to pump them up every two or three days). Eventually the problem was cured by one garage that spent ages cleaning off all this gunge. It was only then that it was possible to get a proper seal between the tyre and rim. Hope you get it sorted :wink:

Paul

 

[PowerTool]

Had the same problem with my old XR2 - was also the same cure as Paul.
I have always had much better service from a couple of local small dealers in little units on industrial estates than any of the national names - they actually seem to take pride in doing the job properly still

Andrew

 

[Scrit]

I've had this problem on a number of cars with alloy/magnesium wheels over the years and it's always the same sort of problem - porosity of the castings. The only solution I've found which really cures it is to have the tyre off and have a rubber inner tube fitted - hardly high tech I know, but it does the job

Scrit

 

[RogerS]

If all the gunge has been cleaned off then possibly the rims might not be circular anymore...not suggesting you kerb your tyres all the time :wink:

 

[Les Mahon]

I've had the same problem and the cure was the same as scrit's.

You may find it better to gop to a small place as the big chain I went to told be that they were tubeless tires, hence no need for an inner tube, but inner tubes do exist and did solve the problem.

Les

 

[gwaithcoed]

Thank you lads for your replys.
I think now what I will do is to replace the front offside (which is the worst one) with my steel spare. Then take the alloy wheel and have the tyre removed, take it back home and remove all of the gunge from the wheel and tyre. I can then give it a good inspection. I will then take it back to be refitted and at the same time I can inquire as to whether I can get tubes for them if required.
If removing the gunge works, I'll do the other wheels,if not then its four tubes to be fitted.

Thank again Alan.

 

[Jorden]

This sounds like a problem familiar to certain british cars like mine in that the tyre bead cannot maintain the seal to the wheel because the alloy corrodes leaving air gaps. The obvious answer (I thought) was to fit an inner tube, but as my wheels are /70 so slightly low profile it would be illegal and highly dangerous to go down that route. Tyre fitting companies over the years have rubbed down the corrosion and used copious amounts of bead seal, but the problem always returned a few months later. Eventually I got fed up with pumping the tyres up every other day and decided to make a more permanent fix.

The problem is the laquer and underlying paint has broken down allowing water to reach the alloy wheel, so first of all the old paint had to be replaced. A local tyre company removed the tyre and fitted the spare to the car so I was still mobile, I took the separate tyre and wheel home. Using a wire brush on an electric drill I cleaned off all the paint around the bead down to the metal, being certain to get rid of all the aluminum oxide and leave shiny metal. The surface doesn't have to be flat smooth as the work will only ever be seen by tyre fitters, but a reasonable smoothness can be easily achieved with a 'flapwheel' This job takes a couple of hours mainly to allow the electric drill to cool down between sessions, also dust protection/extraction is a must!

With the wheel clean the face of the wheel was masked using a circle of cardboard secured in place with masking tape. I placed the wheel on a bucket so I could turn it easily without touching it. The first 3 coats of paint I used were metal primer, after the 3rd coat the primer colour on the wheel was solid with no thin spots after a very light rub down (just to remove high spots caused by dust). I then applied 3 coats of wheel silver paint. I'm not sure the paint is actually necessary except that the paint is designed to adhere to the primer and laquer is expecting to be on paint. Once the paint was dry a put on 3 coats of laquer - total 9 coats!

I left the wheel to cure for 3 days in a warm place (easy in the summer) then took it back to the tyre fitter to be re-assembled. I've done 2 wheels now and haven't had to add air to either one for over 2 months

The costs were the tyre fitter £5, and the spray paint from Halfords £20, and I still have plenty of paint in the cans for when I get problems with the other wheels.

Hope this helps

Dennis

 

[gwaithcoed]

Thanks for that Dennis,
The only thing that concerns me is that after getting a good finish as you obviously did, what happens to it when the tyre fitter shoves his dirty great tyre lever into the rim to refit the tyre :shock: :shock: I sometimes wonder if maybe the rims on mine may have been scored when having my new tyres fitted and the rear ones replaced after having the rubber valves fitted. I will certainly give them a good inspection and maybe give your method a try.

Thank you Alan.

 

[gwaithcoed]

Hello again,
Took off my front offside wheel and replaced it with the spare.Went the local tyre fitter and had him remove the tyre and the reason for my problem was soon apparent.
Most of the paint from the rim was missing and it was badly pitted. The gunge that had been put on had lumps in it where it had been liberally applied to try and sort the problem on previous occasions.
I decided to use the method described by Dennis, only problem I didn't have a flap wheel so I jacked up the front of the car and set it on axle stands. chocked the back wheels, removed the front road wheel and replaced it with the rim. I started the car,put it in first gear and hey presto I'd got myself a lathe. I removed most of the gunge with a wire brush and then cleaned the rim using wet and dry wrapped around a foam sanding block.
When I had got a satisfactory finish I applied 3 coats of primer, top coat and laquer and was really pleased with the result.
Had the tyre refitted and so far no leaks whereas before I was losing 2
psi a day from this wheel. If it is still OK in a weeks time it's off with the others.
Thanks again for all your advice

Alan

 

[Russell]

You need to polish the rims of the wheels, remove the tyres clean all the sealing gunge off and then polish all the surface scratches out of the rims uses a mild abrasive and then a hard sisal mop almost until they shine. The tyre will then seal using normal sealing compound when reset on the rims.

 

[mr]

Erm having ploughed through this thread to make sure no one had said what I was about to I was miffed to see Russell got there first.

So what he said - tyre off, polish rims to anal extent. Otherwise the problem just keeps coming back.
Cheers Mike

 

[Jorden]

Glad it helped Alan

Now, how about attaching a chunk of wood to the hub at the same time and turning one of those huge bowls? :shock:

Dennis :lol: