Have your tire repaired at Drake Auto. We use the most modern process to patch and repair your car or light truck tire. Tire repair has evolved over the years. We used to have tires called bias ply tires. Bias ply tires were an older style that are still used on some trailers for towing. The bias plys were actually a fabric material that was layered around the inside of the tire and then molded into the rubber. The bias plys ran up into the sidewall of the tire.

The most modern type tire that is still in use today is radial tires. Radial tires use a band often made of fiberglass or steel that goes around the outer circumference of the tire. This style of tire allowed the sidewall and the tread surface to act independently giving a smoother ride and better handling. Tire repairs on bias ply tires often involve using a piece of rope dipped in rubber called a tire plug to fix a nail hole.

The bias plys went all the way around the tire so we could plug just about anywhere on the tire othan the sidewall. When radial tires became popular the cords went almost to the sidewall. This gave us the ability to plug almost all the way to the tire sidewall. Since then two things have changed. First most tire manufacturers do not allow tire warranty if it has been plugged. The tire repair has to be done with a patch from the inside of the tire.

This patch on the inside does have a rubber stem that goes through the nail hole as well just like the old patch did so the tire will be water sealed and does not allow water to creep in between the radial cords. The second change is that the radial cords used to go almost all the way to the tire sidewall. For manufacturing reasons and resistance to help gas mileage tire companies have decreased the width of the cords so we can not patch out as far as we used to.

Now the cords barely extend to the outermost groves in the tire so if the hole is between the outermost groves of the tire to the sidewall the tire must also be replaced since there is no cord for structural support to hold the plug and patch from the inside. This has resulted in many more tires needing to be replaced that we used to patch.