Tires: Pinhole on side wall of new tire ?, stress concentration, vandlism


Question
It is said that you can't fixed a flat that has a pinhole on the side of a tire new or old! I had two new tires that had a pin hole caused from vandlism in each one. It look like a Hypo needle or it may have been an ice pick. The hole is to small to see. Is there any bonding agent that can fix this at least with more then 70% reliability of repair!Please advise!

Answer
Gil,

The problem is that the sidewall undergoes a very complex range of motion so any "patch" has trouble handling the movement.

But the other issue is what we engineers call "Stress Concentration".  You might want to look this up in Wikipedia, but the increased risk of further damage - and the sidewall motion mentioned above  - just doesn't make this a worthwhile proposition because having a tire failure at high speeds sometimes results in tragic consequences.