rbrides

I have a puncture in my tubeless road tire. It will be days or weeks until my replacement order arrives. I have STANS tubeless plugs. Are plugs general good for hundreds of miles or general only meant as an emergency repair for short distances?

Koyote

Sounds like you're gonna be riding it...So perhaps you can come back and give us the answer.

JohnDThompson 

What's the advantage of tubeless if the plugs aren't a permanent fix for punctures?

downtube42

I've always plugged and carried on without concern, and never had a plug fail. OTOH, I had a sidewall rip that I decided was not pluggable, so I booted & tubed on the road. If I had tried plugging, that may have been a failed plug story.

So YMMV.

Andrew R Stewart 

My answer is sort of a non answer. Plugs work well till they don't. Assume you can tide a plugged tire till it leaks from the plug again. Andy

Koyote

The advantages would be (1) sealant takes care of many punctures that would otherwise require a rider to stop and put in a new tube, (2) plugs could at least get a rider home without having to do a more time-consuming repair. Oh, and (3) plugs can usually be left in the tire as a long-term repair.

JusJohnDThompson 's post with new eyes, and am wondering if he was posing a rhetorical question. If so, my apologies!

Troul 

Question: Are tubeless plugs a permanent solution when addressing a flat tire?

Answer: It really depends on the plug and puncture, sometimes they will last for the life of the tire, and sometimes you'll see them start to leak again when you refresh the sealant. Generally our Dart tool and plugs are the longest lasting, as they actually react with the sealant & form a solid plug of sealant around the actual insert.

Question: Would it be ok to treat the plugged tire no different than if it were never plugged as long as there are no leaks from the plug insertion area?

Answer: As long as it isn't leaking &the plug is secure, than yes it is no different than an intact tire.

Answers were from: Isaac Smith at notubes

HillRider

Installed properly, a plug should last until the rest of the tire wears out. As JohnDThompson noted, If a plug isn't a long-term fix, why bother? I haven't plugged a bike tire but I know from experience a car tire, properly plugged, is good for the rest of it's normal life span.

Troul 

my takeaway is, *IF* the sealant is not relatively fresh or is lacking some, then it might behooved of you to "top off" the tire with some additional new sealant at the time of inserting a plug.

Darth Lefty 

Putting in a plug is a pretty rare occurrence. It's for a gash, not a simple puncture from a thorn or tire wire. Sealant alone takes care of those. If you are doing it, it's reasonably likely you are plugging damage severe enough you'd want to consider replacing it whether it was tubeless or not. The same situation where in a tube clincher tire you might use a boot (or a candy wrapper or a dollar...) And then it's not really about the sealant or leaks. It's whether or how many of the cords were cut and how you feel about that. In a MTB tire that runs at 20 psi or less you might worry a lot less. Some people even sew them up. In a road tire you are running 4x that pressure. I think I'd hit the pause button.

scottfsmith

Maybe on those nice California roads it is, but in Baltimore I get a lot of punctures in my tires and some don't seal well. I put on new tires recently and there were four plugs in my rear tire when I replaced it.

Back on the original question, yes they should last until the tire needs replacing.

Barry2 

Can you earn enough points to keep using that tire.

+5 points if the type is MTB
-7 points for a road tire
+10 points if it's a rear tire
-15 points if it's a front tire
+10 points if the damage is in a good spot to repair
-30 points if it's in a bad spot for a repair
-1000 points if you can afford to just replace the tire and move on
+5 points if it's a little hole and the sealant has chosen not to to cooperate today.
Unless you only maintain & top off the sealant after it's all gone and you flatted. then +Tubes for you!
-15 points if it's a big hole and you should know better.

Come on... What did I miss

Barry

Crankycrank

IMO I would just put a proper tubeless patch on the inside and be done with it. No worrying if it's going to fail. Plugs are great for roadside repairs though.

Ryan_M

Maybe a patch to reinforce it? I had a little gash in my tire in this thread. It had one of those little sticky patches on it which got me home. I've since replaced it with a patch from a Park VP-1 kit... it's the best I could find that was available locally. They're not tubeless specific but certainly beefier and I wanted something with a vulcanizing adhesive. So far so good.

Atlas Shrugged

I use Dynaplugs and leave them in until the tire is worn out. Don’t really give it a thought.

Polaris OBark

A couple of days ago I rolled over a mass of white chewing gum about 3 miles into a 52 mile ride. I stopped twice to scrape it off as best as I could, but it was incredibly adhesive. Maybe instead of a tire boot, we should carry some chewing gum. Tire goes flat and sealant doesn't do it? Just chew on a stick of gum for 5 minutes, pull it and any fillings out of your mouth, and jam it into the hole from the inside. Maybe that plus a plug would last indefinitely.

vespasianus

I actually do that. An old piece of old 1 cent bubble gum. The kind that gets nasty and hard after about 30 seconds. It will actually work when a puncture won't seal. It works as a larger plug and with sealant, holds enough to get back to the car.

Mtracer

I've had the basic bacon strip plugs work themselves out before I could finish the ride. I'm sure the effectiveness varies with source and perhaps age of the material. I switched to Dyna plugs, and they have worked until the tire is worn out. For leaks that don't seal well, but I don't need to plug to complete the ride, I remove the tire and apply a common inner tube patch to the inside of the tire at the leak. These also last until the tire wears out.

ThermionicScott 

I only recently learned that modern chewing gum uses butyl rubber as its base, so it's not that crazy of an idea.

Polaris OBark

This kind of thing seems to happen whenever I put on some new $$$$ Rene Herse tires.

When I first heard/felt/saw it, it was this big blob of white rubbery crap, and I thought "oh, I must have had a puncture" and then I realized there was no possible way that was Panaracer sealant.

rbrides

I found new tires at LBS. No testing of the plugs for me.