So how screwed am I? :doh:
I was in a bind last night (bad neighborhood after dark, on my way to pick up my kids so not a lot of time at hand) when my right rear "low tire pressure" message and chime pops up. I looked and it was reading 27 pounds while the others said 31; I hoped it was just a cold-weather thing but then it kept dropping. I came upon an auto parts store, so I whipped in to take a look, and sure enough there was a piece of metal sticking in the tread of the tire, and you could hear/feel the air blowing out. Being time constrained and not being real comfortable breaking out the jack and spare in this particular area, I opted to toss in a can of Fix-A-Flat, which did seem to do the trick (though quite a bit of the goo was flung out of the tire and onto my wheel well). Anyway, aired the tire up down the street, and it was holding air, but the TPMS message wouldn't go away...that's when I remembered something about maybe this not being a good idea.
When I got home I got out the manual, and couldn't find any warnings in the "changing a tire" section (which is probably all I'd have read at the parts store anyway)...had to read the TPMS section to see the warning about not using Fix-A-Flat, which I assume explains why even though the tire had adequate pressure, the message wouldn't go off.
So my question is, now that it's too late to turn back, how promptly am I going to have to deal with this? This morning the tire had lost some pressure, but enough to get me to work (and hopefully home tonight). But assuming it continues to slowly lose air, can I likely plug/patch the hole, or will I have to get a new tire (which I wouldn't mind replacing because I'm not fond of the factory tires, but I JUST bought a new set for my wife's car last weekend, and would really like to hold off on that for a year if I could)? And what about the TPMS? Is it instantly bad now, or once I get the tire to hold air will it work for a period of time and then go bad?
If I can take it to the dealer and they can patch/plug the tire, and replace the sensor for around the cost of getting a new tire, I'd be fine with that. It I can go to a local garage and get the tire patched and wait for the sensor to fail, even better. But I don't know if I'm doing more harm than good by waiting to address it. And FWIW the sensor seems to be reading the pressure correctly at this point, it just won't turn off the "low pressure" warning...which as long as it will read correctly I could live with.
Thoughts (other than I'm an idiot, of course!)?
And while I found old posts here about not doing this, I couldn't find one of someone who had actually done this...so if nothing else maybe someone else can learn from my mistake.
I was in a bind last night (bad neighborhood after dark, on my way to pick up my kids so not a lot of time at hand) when my right rear "low tire pressure" message and chime pops up. I looked and it was reading 27 pounds while the others said 31; I hoped it was just a cold-weather thing but then it kept dropping. I came upon an auto parts store, so I whipped in to take a look, and sure enough there was a piece of metal sticking in the tread of the tire, and you could hear/feel the air blowing out. Being time constrained and not being real comfortable breaking out the jack and spare in this particular area, I opted to toss in a can of Fix-A-Flat, which did seem to do the trick (though quite a bit of the goo was flung out of the tire and onto my wheel well). Anyway, aired the tire up down the street, and it was holding air, but the TPMS message wouldn't go away...that's when I remembered something about maybe this not being a good idea.
When I got home I got out the manual, and couldn't find any warnings in the "changing a tire" section (which is probably all I'd have read at the parts store anyway)...had to read the TPMS section to see the warning about not using Fix-A-Flat, which I assume explains why even though the tire had adequate pressure, the message wouldn't go off.
So my question is, now that it's too late to turn back, how promptly am I going to have to deal with this? This morning the tire had lost some pressure, but enough to get me to work (and hopefully home tonight). But assuming it continues to slowly lose air, can I likely plug/patch the hole, or will I have to get a new tire (which I wouldn't mind replacing because I'm not fond of the factory tires, but I JUST bought a new set for my wife's car last weekend, and would really like to hold off on that for a year if I could)? And what about the TPMS? Is it instantly bad now, or once I get the tire to hold air will it work for a period of time and then go bad?
If I can take it to the dealer and they can patch/plug the tire, and replace the sensor for around the cost of getting a new tire, I'd be fine with that. It I can go to a local garage and get the tire patched and wait for the sensor to fail, even better. But I don't know if I'm doing more harm than good by waiting to address it. And FWIW the sensor seems to be reading the pressure correctly at this point, it just won't turn off the "low pressure" warning...which as long as it will read correctly I could live with.
Thoughts (other than I'm an idiot, of course!)?
And while I found old posts here about not doing this, I couldn't find one of someone who had actually done this...so if nothing else maybe someone else can learn from my mistake.
)
