Air loss from Rear RFT

[peds8045]

My 2.5 Zed had been baking in the sun all day whilst at work. On the way home (really hot car) the Tyre pressure light came on, well i felt no change to the handling of the car and assumed....its the heat affecting the system. Anyway i was only five minutes from home so i reset the tyre pressure sensor and drove home.
I had a quick look at the tyres and there was nothing obviously wrong.

So today i went in to the garage and reversed the car out and i could see the bottom of one of the rear tyres (Bridgstone RFT) and it appeared slightly deflated. Anyway, expecting the worst i rang a garage to see if they would repair it if it was a punctured in the tread area (they said yes) so i removed the wheel and took it to the garage where they checked it out. Low an behold it wasn't a puncture but it appears that the air had been lost between the tyre and the alloy rim, 15 quid to fix it (tyre off, sealant around the rim and new valve). The garage said they get around 30 cases of this a week and its quite common with alloy wheels.

So if you get a warning light indication like this, don't think the worst (as i did) there may be nothing wrong with the tyre! (Oh and please don't criticise me' for wanting to repair a RFT. I'm not made of money, i don't race the car round the streets and it was a nearly new RFT)

Hope this symptom helps somebody some day.

 

[Gorbash12346]

it's not to do with racing round the streets or even the age of the run flat tyre the reason we generally don't repair them is that when the tyre is flat it is supported entirely by the sidewalls of the tyre with thick rubber and steel banding being pressed and effectively grated on the surface fo the road the pressure that this causes makes the sidewall start to disintegrate where it joins to the tread, problem being that generally people will keep driving even when the light comes one (as you did) and as such there is no way for a tyre repairer/fitter to be able to guage if the tyre is safe to re-use as there is generally a lot of damage that is not visible to the naked eye

as such it is generally too risky to repair a run flat tyre

 

[Smokin]

peds, don't worry about it. I repaired a nearly new PS2 ZP. Unless the tire was truly flat (ie, no air pressure) and you didn't run it far or fast, AND the repair is done off wheel so it can be inspected, patch away. My tire had a slow leak and a small puncture. Everyone on here who proclaims the mantra of never fix a RFT assumes you ran it with no pressure at all. Even Michelin has procedures for patching a RFT.