So I've just returned from a three week trip around Europe in the VX. France Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. On the return from Italy, at the start of the Brenner pass at 130 kph a piece of debris flew under the central reservation barrier and under the car. Shortly after I could feel the car pulling heavily to the (UK) nearside. I pulled in to the services at the head of the pass to find my front nearside tyre was flat. I was well prepared for this eventuality with a small scissor jack, wheelbrace and two puncture repair kits behind the seats. The plug the tyre type and this one.
https://www.airman-u...tyre-repair-kit
A kindly German who had no idea what he was doing tried to help me, but eventually left me to it. I jacked the car up and removed the wheel but couldn't find the puncture to use the plug kit so used the kit above instead. I know these can put your wheel well out of balance so I only used about a third of the fluid and pumped the tyre up to five psi over pressure. Then I could see there were in fact two puncures within about half an inch of each other. I rolled the tyre around a bit, went and had a coffeee, came back and set off on my way. The wheel was off balance but OK up to 70 mph. I kept stopping at each services to check tyre pressure and it was decreasing but very very slowly. By the time I reached my overnight stop it had decreased to 1/2 psi above correct and was stable at that pressure.
I was in a quandry as to whether or not to try to get the tyre repaired, but finding a repair shop in a foreign city was difficult on my tight schedule, but not only that, two punctures close together presented a problem as did the fact that I know some places will refuse to repair tyres that have sealing gunk in them. Also if the tyre was condemned then there was the problem of obtaining a replacement.
So I carried on at 70 mph all the way back home.
Instructions on the repair kit say the repair is good for 50 mph max to the nearest service station. I did 600 miles at 70 mph (with frequent checks) and the repair was still holding strong when I arrived home.
As I suspected, the tyre is a write off from running flat for too long, but this is definitely a good piece of kit to have if you're travelling away from home.
