NTB SUCKS!

[MG2000XJ]

Well atlest the one in Timonium/Towson does. Yesterday I got a flat and I dont know how to fix a puncture (I will def. figure it out now) so I took it to NTB. They said its fixable, hour and a half wait bla bla bla... When I went back and got it, it ended up being $28 for a puncture repair and rebalancing. I thought it was kinda weird that they rebalanced it b/c I just got the tires 2 weeks ago and they were freshly balanced. Got it home and the white lettering is on the outside (black letters when I took it) not a big deal, after further inspection I found a chunk of rubber missing from the rim protector and they must have accidentaly put a weight on the outside lip of the rim instead of the rim. Then they must have popped it back off with a screwdriver and scratched my wheel up. Went back today and they completely denied all of it and said they would turn the tire back around but they cant do anything about the rest. The scratch wouldnt piss me off if I did it myself but a place like NTB shouldnt be doing shitty work then denying it.

 

[nekocopter]

They had to dismount the tire, that is the reason they rebalanced it..

And the white lettering issue, that's their fault, and should be fixed. But it's hard to prove that they screwed the wheel up, so good luck.

 

[Sniggs]

Have you tried anything else to try to resolve this issue or did you just come here to bitch and do nothing more?

 

[RichP]

It happens, cultivate a local shop, me, I do my own tires and stuff. Customer has an 8 bay shop with two tire machines. I'm not too good getting the weights on though and I have the smooshed fingers to prove it....
'Whats all that ruckus going on out there, oh it's just rich putting his weights on'.. those AT/KO's with the bead protector are a $#%$## PIA....
The reason they dismounted it was to put a flat patch on the inside of the tire where you rough up the guts and glue it on then roll it out. Gone are the days of the stick in plugs for some reason and thinking about it I don't know why, I got along just fine for many years with a stick in plug unless it has something to do with the steel belts...

 

[WB9YZU]

The plug bit depends on the shop and what they think of the hole. Some people simply refuse to have it plugged and insist on a patch, so it may be that the shop defaults to that. Some placed will plug for free, but you pay for the patch.

Quality: Alot of tire places are where people start off, shop around.
You kinda are getting what you paid for. If you wanted real service, you should have went to a local dealer which has been in business for decades and all they know is tires.

Still, stuff happens. I took a Cherokee I just bought to a local tire place and they had a new guy. This place often did excellent work and their people skills were good... for a tire place (Ever notice how "Real" tire places are kinda gruff?). When I got it back, I found I could not loosen 2 lugs. Not even budge them, then I recalled an in passing comment by the Tech who said that a couple of nuts were messed up. The idget didn't have to put them back on! I ended up drilling them out and chalking it up as a "One off" by a good shop.

 

[5-90]

It happens, cultivate a local shop, me, I do my own tires and stuff. Customer has an 8 bay shop with two tire machines. I'm not too good getting the weights on though and I have the smooshed fingers to prove it....
'Whats all that ruckus going on out there, oh it's just rich putting his weights on'.. those AT/KO's with the bead protector are a $#%$## PIA....
The reason they dismounted it was to put a flat patch on the inside of the tire where you rough up the guts and glue it on then roll it out. Gone are the days of the stick in plugs for some reason and thinking about it I don't know why, I got along just fine for many years with a stick in plug unless it has something to do with the steel belts...

Partly the steel belts, and partly because a patch is more reliable and would seal better (seals against the inside surface, rather than just inside the hole.)

I'd keep a "snot kit" in the rig for emergency puncture repairs, that would allow you to get in where you can get it fixed properly.

For the OP - even if they mark the tyre and rim for relative locations, they'd still have to rebalance due to the patch (a patch only weighs a quarter-ounce to a half-ounce, but it's enough to throw off the tyre's balance. This is especially true for oversize off-road tyres - the effect of the off-centre weight increases rather drastically with the distance of the weight from the centre of the rotating assembly.)

 

[bjoehandley]

Dad does all the patching for our vehicles and has an old bubble balancer (I swear all the equipment is probable 40+ y/o). The way I understand it, the reason that the plug type patched are bad is because to install them you have ream the hole out to 1/4 inch which is generally more than what tire manfacturers recommend as a safe, repairable hiole in the tire. If you have a nail or screw, it's probably better to put CA glue on it and put it back in the air up once the CA cures untill you can get to the next shop to get it patched correctly. Even if this is done, it takes the speed rating of that tire down to a recommended 85mph. When Dad patches a tire, he'll usually mark the location of the wheel weights and valve stem on the tire so he line things back up afterwards and not rebalance the whole thing. We haven't had any problems after that on several different vehicles, including 3 out of 4 XJ's, two G-Vans, and a couple of Turbo K-Cars (atleast for the vehicles I've spent time behind the wheel of.)

As for NTB, google them for problems, you got off lucky.

 

[5-90]

Yeah - a simple chalk or wax mark on the tyre right next to the valve stem (only one mark, please!) will allow you to both put the tyre on right-side out, but also to minimise the effort in balancing said tyre - since it's already nearly balanced anyhow.

Those "bubble balancers" give a good static balance, but don't really do anything for dynamic balancing - for that, you have to spin the tyre and wheel after they're assembled. No way around that.

However, for most low-speed work, a static balance will serve neatly. I'd have no trouble doing that with something that stays under, say, 40MPH - but I'd want a dynamic balance for freeway speeds, and I wouldn't bother with a static balance for a motorcycle tyre (not as much room for error, there...)

 

[Begster]

Ya a month after I got my new tires put on I found that there was a nail sticking in one of them. I brought it back to the place I bought it and I watched them as they dismounted the tire, grinded off the inside smooth, and then applied a patch. I think it will hold much better than a plug, although I have both plugs and patches in my tire repair kit from autozone.

 

[Art Triggs]

I have a "Safety Seal" plug kit in my toolbhox in the xj, I have plugged several tires on my pickup and my wifes car with no bad effects so fat, I would not try to plug a tire for road use if I thought there was a problem with one of the steel belts, of if the hole was very large. I did help stitch a torn sdewall and then plug it with safety seal plugs, it seems to be still holding air a year later, all I expected it to do was get the guy off the trail....

 

[8Mud]

I believe in redundancy, I plug and patch.

 

[yardape]

Years ago,... maybe 40 I worked at a gas station and plugged dozens of tires. None of them ever came back.

 

[imwally]

My local place I go to does not charge anything to fix a flat.

 

[RichP]

I'd keep a "snot kit" in the rig for emergency puncture repairs, that would allow you to get in where you can get it fixed properly.

Boy, if I used one of those snot kits I'd make sure to take it to a shop I would never deal with again to get if fixed. Someone brought one to my friends shop, about 30 seconds into the tire dismounting on the horizontal machine all you heard was the tire guy swearing up a bluestreak, he wanted to drag in the owner and have HER clean the machine up.. looked like someone had set off a green slime bomb on it...

 

[yardape]

I'd keep a "snot kit" in the rig for emergency puncture repairs, that would allow you to get in where you can get it fixed properly.

Excuse me for being naive but are we talking about fix-a-flat?

 

[bjoehandley]

Excuse me for being naive but are we talking about fix-a-flat?

Yea, but it looks like flu snot (think "You Can't Do That on Television", but less funny)

 

[XJPhoenix]

My brother owns a tire shop, and I've spent quite a lot of time there helping out.

It's true that many folks here and elsewhere have gone with plugs and not had a problem; but there are also folks out there who've had plugs fail on them. Honestly, I would go with either depending on how old the tire was and how much tread it had left. If it's a newer tire, I'd go with a patch. It's a permanent fix, and has a better track record than plugs. If the tread was halfway gone, or the tire was older, I'd plug it.

As for the balancing job, were the operators asked to put the weights only on the back? (Or, are the rims chromed/powder coated?) If they're the stock units, or steel aftermarket, then it's common practice to do a dynamic balance. If stick on weights or weights only on one side of the tire is preferred then it should be requested before any work on the vehicle is started.

As for the 'fix-a-flat' goop, it's HIGHLY recommended on the product itself that the owner/operator of said vehicle inform anyone who's going to work on that tire that the product has been used. I've been the uninformed dude cracking open a tire full of that crap, and it can be seriously messy, or even hazardous! (Not everyone wears safety glasses when they're doing that stuff.) It's a PITA to scrape/hose/suck that stuff out of a tire, and you have to get ALL of it out, or else balancing those bad boys are a nightmare.

 

[bjoehandley]

Doesn't that crap also damage aluminum rims too?

 

[5-90]

Boy, if I used one of those snot kits I'd make sure to take it to a shop I would never deal with again to get if fixed. Someone brought one to my friends shop, about 30 seconds into the tire dismounting on the horizontal machine all you heard was the tire guy swearing up a bluestreak, he wanted to drag in the owner and have HER clean the machine up.. looked like someone had set off a green slime bomb on it...

Wrong snot. I don't use "snot in a can," I'm talking about the boogers you can use for plugs.

The only place I use gorilla snot is on small tyres and wheels - wheelbarrows, hand carts, and bicycles. I can throw away those innertubes and have done with them.

Don't use gorilla snot in a tubeless - unless you're deeply in extremis and can't get anything else. That's why I keep the "snot kit" around - so I don't have to use gorilla snot.