Slow pressure loss woes - slime?

danlightbulb

danlightbulb

danlightbulb

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Joined
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Birmingham
Thinking of injecting some slime tyre sealant into my car tyres. It's used on mountain bike tyres routinely.

Reason is that I have continual pressure loss from my tyres. I've had 4 new tyres as part of last MOT, and even after that it is still happening (it was happening before on the old tyres as well). I'm losing around 0.3 bar a week.

I assume there is some corrosion on the rim that means it's not seated properly, and I guess the garage didn't do a good job of fitting the tyres when they replaced them.

Other option is to get the wheels refurbed which would be around £60 a wheel.

Anyone put slime into their car tyres?
 
Nope don't do it, we put it in our vans at work moons ago and it wasn't worth the effort.

You need a decent tire shop that knows what they are doing.

I've had this issue with various cars my last car was the worst of the lot though.

Spent a year faffing about I even used an equivalent to the slime stuff, and it just wouldn't work.

There is a shop closed to me called tyre smart and they said we know what the problem, £25 per wheel and we'll sort it.

Turns out was corrosion of the rim, they cleaned it, polished it resealed the tyre rim and never had a problem since. They are now my go to tyre shop.

Obviously this doesn't help you out as your in Birmingham and I'm Essex, but if you find a decent tyre shop they will fix your issue for good.
 
I've had that with 2 wheels (and still have it with another 2..) and the only real option is to take it to a tyre place where they can take the tyre off and wire brush the mating surface to remove any corrosion and then remount the tyre with liberal amount of the sealant stuff.
 
danlightbulb said:
Anyone put slime into their car tyres?
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Don't.
This is one of my ST wheels that suffered from a slow rim leak (very very common)..

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We get this all the time at work, and when fitting new tyres we always clean the rim up and use bead sealant to prevent any slow leaks.
It takes minutes to do when the tyre is off and it saves the customer coming back with a problem.
We don't charge if we're fitting new tyres.
Just to add, a lot of places won't repair a tyre thats had Slime or similar put into it (it's a PITA to clean it out).
 
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As above dirty rim bead can be fixed with cleaning or extra dollop of sealant.
Also check the valve iv had 3 dodgey rubber valves split on me finally got a set of metal valves put in and no more issues.
 
Thing is though that to take it to a tyre place now and have them remove the tyres, fix the corrosion and refit the tyres will cost me around £15 per wheel. They should have done it properly in the first place but didn't obviously.

If I'm going to spend £60 I may as well spend £200 and get the alloys properly refurbished.

Or spend a tenner on some slime. Those are the options.
 

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danlightbulb said:
Thing is though that to take it to a tyre place now and have them remove the tyres, fix the corrosion and refit the tyres will cost me around £15 per wheel. They should have done it properly in the first place but didn't obviously.

If I'm going to spend £60 I may as well spend £200 and get the alloys properly refurbished.

Or spend a tenner on some slime. Those are the options.
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Why do you assume slime is an option?
 
I've got this on the GFs car since getting 2 new tyres put on. It takes about a week for them to delflate from 32psi to about 27psi.

I've just been topping them up weekly with a cordless inflator and, having read this thread, I'll get my tyre place to clean the rims and add bead seal when the tyres need changing.
 
Yeah that loss is way more than normal. Mine deflate about 0.5 to 1.0 PSI in a two week period depending on if the weather gets colder or warmer.
 
Slime will not cure a rim leak.
If you want to see if it is a rim leak, then mix up some washing up liquid and water and spray it around the rim, although it’s easier with the wheel laying flat on the floor.
 
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sigma said:
Why start the thread if you've already made your mind up? Literally nobody has said it's a good idea, lol.
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I haven't made my mind up, it's a hassle to inject the slime as well because the tyre needs to be deflated and the valve core removed.

I just wondered if anyone has used it. I see a lot of stuff online saying it's not a good idea but it seems to have a bit of stigma really because there isn't a reason why it wouldn't work.
 
danlightbulb said:
I just wondered if anyone has used it. I see a lot of stuff online saying it's not a good idea but it seems to have a bit of stigma really because there isn't a reason why it wouldn't work.
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I would never use it on a slow leak, get a decent tyre place to check the rim as it maybe a beading issue or you may actually have a damaged wheel (although with a slow leak the damaged wheel theory seems less likely). When they are literally the only thing in contact with the road why would you risk a bodge job fix, imagine a blow out on the motorway in the outside lane
 
JonRGV250 said:
It’s an emergency use product to get you to a tyre shop when you get a puncture.
Why on earth you’d inject it into a tyre for no reason seems a bit baffling.
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as said have used it before as a emergency , results vary but always got me out of trouble, however long term use for possible rim leak maybe not so good . i would take the rim off and test first as was suggested it may be as simple as dodgy valves.
 
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