America's Tire — Blog

Where has the air gone?

A week ago I put on new wheels and tires on my 2026 Mazda MX-5. Fast forward to two days ago I noticed two of the wheels were already low on air. Baffling, because I’ve only done about 10 miles on the set since installation. Unless I’m incredibly unlucky in catching a two nails on two seperate tires in the least amount of miles, the leakage has got to be from the equipment.

Well, the tires are new, and so are the wheels. It’s very unlikely those are malfunctioning from the factory. The only culprit that I immediately zeroed in on is the tire valves. Those were also purchased brand new, but their efficacy in sealing to the wheels is dependent on the installer. If you don’t pull the rubber bit far out enough, the base won’t adhere to the wheel surface completely.

So out came the soapy water spray and the hypothesis was confirmed. Many bubbles coming out of the valve stem base. I used a four-way valve stem tool to gain leverage on the valve and pulled on it outwardly. To my surprise, it actually worked! Both leaky wheels have successful held air for two consecutive days of checking. Knock on wood.

Sidebar: car enthusiasts should not look down upon brick and mortar auto parts stores like AutoZone and O’Reilly. Those stores might not sell the appropriately OE quality stuff for your finest German and Japanese machines, but if you need something in a pinch - like the aforementioned four-way valve stem tool - auto parts stores are a figurative god send. Especially on weekends where without that part, you are otherwise stuck on that project.

The blame for the tire valve seating issue has got to be on the technician that mounted the tires to the wheels, right? They do so many sets per day that it’s got to be muscle memory. This particular time, muscle memory failed to apply enough force. Part of the mounting process should really involve checking to see that the rubber valve has seated correctly.

Shame! America’s Tire has always been reliable and cheap for me. I guess you really do get what you paid for. I’ll choose a different tire place next time where you can pay more for attention to detail.

Seems impossible

I did not realize it was possible to balance a wheel and tire package and not have to add additional weights.

The non car enthusiast of you may not know this, but when you go get a new set of tires, the technicians have to put the wheel and tire setup on a balancing machine. Because tires are not perfectly round rotationally out of the factory. (And your wheels, after many miles of battering, aren’t likely to be perfectly round either.) Guided by the machine, the mechanic attaches tiny grams of weights onto the inner wheel rim to make the whole thing roll smoothy.

I recently got a new set of wheels for my MX-5. Two of them were brand new, two of them were used from eBay. I bought tires from Tire Rack, then shipped directly to the local America’s Tire for mounting. (Both have been and remain excellent companies to deal with when it comes to tire needs.) Upon receiving the wheels with tires mounted, I noticed one of them did not have any wheel weights glued to it.

I flagged an America’s Tire staff person to inquire about the perceived discrepancy. Perhaps - this was a busy store on a Saturday - they forgot to balance one of the wheels. After checking with the technician who performed the job, the staff responded that particular wheel balanced with the tire without weights. Alright, I will take your word for it. Sorry for besmirching the quality of technicians. I wasn’t really familiar with your game.

If this were one of the brand new wheels, it wouldn’t have been that alarming. You’d expect a new wheel plus new tire have a higher chance of making perfect balance. But this was one of the eBay wheels off a 30,000+ miles wrecked car! It was initially kind of difficult to believe that wheel balanced out without any addendum.

Indeed that is the case. After mounting the wheels onto the MX-5 and taking it out for a spin, there were no abnormal vibrations. I mean, you’d know if a wheel is off balance, especially at highway speeds.