I have a very slow leak at one of my three piece rims.

I had this fixed by Egberts (a local wheel repair company) three times in the past three years and now it is leaking again. The guy at Egbert was nice enough to redo them no charge, but it always cost me $50 to have the tires dismounted and remounted since Egbert doesn't do tire service. I notice that the rim is also suffering from minor damage every time it is dismounted/mounted. Gary Egbert told me this is a very rare instance for them, and the last time they re-sealed it, he even consulted his sealant supplier because the usual stuff that he uses doesn't seem to work on my rims.

needles to say, this is becoming an issue now. the CGTS had been rock solid, and the only issue I have to deal with is this recurrent leak.

I had been reading about Slime Tire Sealant and wondering if anybody on board had ever used this product to fix leaks on three piece rims..

There is supposed to be a tire sensor safe version of this product..

your thoughts?

 

Won't work. Any semi-liquid tire sealant is engineered to be thrown at the inside of the tread area of the tire (by centrifugal force), and it won't be on the inside of the rim.

 

Be careful with Slime. I have a bottle in my CTT to use in an emergency, however, there are a number of reviewers that claim that the TPMS-safe tire sealant still killed their sensor. For that reason, I would only use it as a last resort in the event of an emergency or in a car that does not have a TPM system.

 

This is probably going to be your case. I've used slime in lots of stuff with mostly good results. But recently had a hole develop in the side of a motorcycle tube and the slime would not even touch it. Put a whole bunch in the tire and it still leaked exactly the same.

I still might try it Cheap to try, and will tell you if you are leaking from some random hole in the tread surface or from somewhere else.

 

just to update this thread..

I lived with the slow leak all summer last year, by pumping air every 5-6 days to bring it up to ideal. I stored the wheels all winter and switched to my winter set. Well, summer is upon us again, and we're just waiting to have get most of the potholes fixed and switch back to summer set.

I finally got around to running soapy water on the leaky wheel to find out that the three piece rim was fine (good news) and the air was actually leaking slowly on the edge where the rim meets the tire. There seems to be no damage on both rim & rubber. I called the tire company that mounted them for me, I was told it is normal for big wheels like my 22" to be leaky..

is that normal, or they're just BS'ing me. They mounted the set in May 2011, I used it all summer, stored the wheels winter 2011 and by the time I mounted them back last spring (2012) it was leaky already.

 

I think you already know the answer - they are just BS'ing you If the factory 21"s do not leak, then why would it be common for 22"s to leak?

I think what the guy was trying to say in a non-accurate way, is that rims with low profile tires are more likely to be bent by potholes. And thus, possibly start leaking air. The reality is that this can happen with any wheel and is assuming that your wheel is bent or deformed and is causing the bad seal.

I would just ask for the tire to be remounted and balanced since the cost is minimal.

 

DIMF,

By the way, good to see you here. I haven't seen you around in a while.

 

thanks for the answers..

I'd been busy with other hobby (audio)

I left the wheel at the tire shop, they will dismount and check what's going on. They were telling me that it could be corrosion as indicated by the bubbles (chrome about to flake) because there is moisture underneath. I pointed out that the leak was nowhere near any bubble, nor any curb rush.
I find this hard to believe because they mounted new rubber less than a year before it started leaking - my understanding was it's a standard procedure to clean any wheel of any corrosion before mounting new rubber on it. The guy even went as far as saying that the leak will keep on coming back because of the flaking. Again, I said no leak anywhere close to the flaking spots.

I was already told that they won't cover it under warranty of the previous install, but that's fine. I would rather deal with this than having to reseal the three piece aluminum wheel joints.

 

My solution is to carry a tire plug repair kit. If get a flat, plug it with the kit and then use the onboard compressor to pump up tire enough to get to a station to do a check and proper inflation.
I would stay away from sealer slime per above comments on killing sensors (much more expensive to replace them).
If you damage sidewall, not even the sealer slime will fix anyway.

 

Cool - Welcome back.

Corrosion issues can be tricky if it gets the point of flaking. Since you can only see a small area of the sealing bead from the outside, you cannot fully determine the placement and condition of the corrosion until the tire is fully dismounted.

The last time I had this issue, I saw it first hand, where the installer (wheel repair guy) sanded down the tire bead area (removing any flaky parts) before remounting the tire. He was very careful not to sand anything externally facing. I got a great seal after that.

 

This sounds like the right approach

 

I had the same problem with my 2004 S. the problem was corrosion on the inside outer rim. This was on 2 tyres. The local garage used a wire brush in a drill to remove the blistering. They told me that this was due to condensation inside the wheel. Sinse they did this I have had no issues. They only charged me $30 per wheel. I was shown the problem and it was corroded. Also they placed the wheels in a water tank to prove where the tyre was leaking.