New Tires Don't Hold Air

[JohnHaggerty]

I bought three new tires for my boat trailer a year ago. Since then only 1 of 3 holds air. Shop that did the work is too far to have them fix it. Rims are galvanized and 25 years old. I changed the inside of the stems and that made no difference. Any ideas? What would do? Having just down-sized and moved, I have limited shop area and tools.

Thanks,
John

 

[TLane]

You need to find out where they are leaking to know what to do. Assuming you don't have a tank big enough to dunk the tires, lay them on their sides and fill the small space where the tire meets the rim with soapy water and check to see if the beads are sealing. If the beads are good, go over the entire tire with soapy water until you find the leak. You can also go over the valve stem and any welds on the rim, but these are probably the last places to look. A small 1-2" paint brush and a cup of soapy water will help.

 

[wyosteve]

I had that problem with my Bobcat tires. Best suggestion I have is to just put tubes in them if you can find that size.

 

[SnoKing]

I suspect that they did not clean the bead area of the rim well enough or the rims are beyond useful life in the regard. I good tire shop should have made you aware of the issue. Wheels are not that expensive.

SNOKING

 

[KEnglish]

I had 2 year old tires on my box trailer that went flat. Tires were fine, the 2 year old valve stems had dry rotted. Replaced them with metal.

 

[WCPoe]

As TLane said use the soapy water on the tires laying flat. We had a older Infiniti Q45 and had put some Goodyear Eagles fairly expensive tires on it. Three of the tires lost 8 to 10 pounds a month. Installer tried to tell me it was the rims and wouldn't do anything about it. Laid them flat with the soapy water solution and low and behold look at all the soapy bubbles around the rims. Finally replaced those tires with another brand which another installer had. No problems from then on. When we pulled off the Goodyears they had some rubber flashing debris in the beaded area. Poor quality control I suspect.

 

[Motorhead]

I have a 2009 Kubota B3200 4x4 tractor and with only 100 total hours on the tractor, I kept finding the front tire flat. I pushed the tire away from the rim and daubed a generous amount of Gasgacinch between the tire bead and the rim. Haven't had a leak since. My rims were clean and still with paint. There is a product called "SLIME" that is a tire sealant that is made here:
http://slime.com/ I put it in several pieces of machinery that had pnumatic tires on them that were always loosing air and suffering from punctures from thorns. Worked well.