Dobrin

I'm sure this must have been discussed before, but search just doesn't work.

So, I noticed a small pin in the front left tire. The tire pressure is not dropping and therefore I decided to no try to remove it. Is this the best thing to do? I mean, this is a tire on less than a year with less than 5000 miles on it. Should I repair it, replace it, or should I replace both front tires so that they have equal life?

Thanks!

JstnRyan

Where'd you get the tire? A lot of tire shops will patch it for free.

If, however, I were in your shoes, I'd remove the pin and check for leaking. I'd rather it leak and go flat in my garage, rather than while I'm driving.

mombasaman

Those tire patch kits at auto supply stores work pretty well. Also, it is an easy fix at any tire shop. Do get it removed as it will leak eventually.

Dobrin

Thanks for the fast replies!

The tires were installed at Sam's club, but their road hazard program is not available in the state of New York.
I was thinking about a patch at a tire workshop but I'm not sure if this is a good choice for high perforamnce tires (I've got Michelin Pilot Exalto).

Apollo

I'd get the thing removed and the tire patches.

A patch will be fine. Unless you're going trackdays or pushing the tires really really hard, the plug will be fine.

Think of it this way: You're concerned about patching and making whole a high performance tire. The alternative is leaving a pin/nail in you high performance tire that may or may continue to work its way into the carcass.

skier219

What kind of pin are we talking about? Might not have even gone all the way through if it really is a pin. If it did go through, a patch ought to be used. I'd only recommend a plug if we were talking about a nail or screw.

The location is a major factor in how serious this is. Whereabouts on the tire?

zoomkat

Get it fixed as the pin will eventually be pushed fully into the tire. You could pull it out first and use soapy water to see if it leaks. I recently noticed a front tire on my truck has a slow leak. Close inspection this weekend found four small pieces in the tire tread, all equally spaced around the tire and carefully put in the very small dimple that the tread cleats have. It appears somebody carefully stick some type of pin or tack into the dimples. They are very small, so I'll try so fix-a-flat before doing a string patch. On my s2000 I've got ~10k miles on a string patch I did on a rear tire when I got a nail in it.