Weird puncture

[Littlepeahead]

My car developed a puncture today. But it's a weird one. The tyres are only a month old. The tyre felt fine on the M25, they are nitrogen filled and the sensor didn't go off. I stopped at FG1's house and didn't notice any problem when I parked then came out after the time it takes to have a cup of tea to find the tyre going down through a tiny hole like a pin***** in the wall of the tyre midway been alloy and tarmac.

No sign of damage, no scrape to tyre rubber or damage to the alloy. No sign that I've driven into anything either just that tiny hole. No reason to think anyone has vandalised it. It's a BMW 7 series, these are hefty tyres.

Any ideas how this can happen?

No idea but you can send them off for specialist repair to sidewalls

Mrs had one on the Volvo a couple of weeks ago. Front went down without feeling weird on the steering and when she parked at the end of a 1 mile journey, the sidewall had actually split open where the rim had crushed it. They aren't even particularly low profile, let alone run flats.

[BanannaMan]

Could have been vandalism but could have been something you hit in the road.
The sidewall is the thinnest and easiest part of the tyre to puncture.
Have seen on the road punctures that did not leak until the car was parked usually depending on where the puncture was located on the parked tyre.
On the upper half generally indicates it was vandalized. However sometimes smaller punctures leak worse with the weight of the car on them (lower half).





As for the nitrogen.
While it does work in theory, it's been proven not to be cost effective for most cars depending what you are paying to keep them properly inflated and what type of driving you do.

[Littlepeahead]

They stuck nitrogen in when we had the tyres changed, no extra cost at the time. What sort of driving do I do... Mostly to Sainsbury half a mile away and back, why else would I need a 3 litre beast?

[johnnyrod]

Oh God another nitrogen tyre thread! Pass me the rope.

Yeah weird one LPH, I can't imagine how that came around. Bear in mind that if someone had stabbed a hole in it, it would look smaller afterwards than the thing that made the hole, the runner has been pierced not cored.

[Red Herring]

May sound like a rather obvious question, but how did you discover the puncture? You say you found it going down but if the hole was so small how did you find it?

[Littlepeahead]

The hissing noise. Small enough that if I pressed my finger tip over it it stopped hissing.

[Biker Biggles]

I suspect someone has vandalised it while parked.If it was still hissing when you got back to the car it must have been fairly recent?

[NTECUK]

Vandalise one tyre seams odd ??
Two maybe .
Your just unlucky I guess