How to deal with a puncture repair

If you are unlucky enough to get a puncture in your tyre whilst driving then pull over to the side of the road as quickly and safely as possible. Immediately put on your emergency flashers. Once you have stopped examine the situation properly. Is it safe to change the spare? If you have on that is!!. If you are confident you can change the wheel the first thing to do is place any warning triangles about 20m behind the car to warn other drivers. Use your wheel brace to loosen off the wheel nuts. Then jack the car up fully. Remove the nuts completely and fit the spare wheel. Replace the nuts but tighten them till hand tight. Drop the car off the jack then give each wheel nut one final turn to ensure they are tight.

Once you are back home take give your local mobile tyre fitting company a call.

Any damage to a tyre should be repaired by a full trained repair specialist. A puncture or damage to a tyre affects performance and safety, so a proper repair is critical. However, only punctures in the tread area that are straight-through and 1/4" diameter or smaller may be repaired, if no secondary damage has occurred. Secondary damage includes sidewall damage which is sometimes unavoidable. If you suddenly get a flat tyre on a motorway, by the time you have slowed down and stopped the damage is already done. In some respects this is where the “temporary inflator cans and gadgets” fall short. How can you tell that the tyre is damaged on the inside and yet you fill the tyre with the inflator sealant and carry on driving. So often when the tyre is removed from the rim after a puncture there is a large amount of dust in the tyre which is basically the inside wall disintegrating after being driven on while deflated.

A proper tyre repair can be made only if the tyre is removed from the rim, after a thorough internal inspection, and if the repair is made from the inside out. Then, a vulcanized plug and patch must be used to fill and seal the damage. Only specially trained technicians are qualified to repair a tyre, so please do not attempt the process yourself.

Once a tyre has been repaired correctly there are no restrictions on how to drive on it. However if you are unfortunate enough to get a second puncture then providing it is not in the same quarter of the tyre then this can be repaired also. If you get a third puncture it is advisable to replace the tyre.