A good puncture always affects the others – sunburnt oldie drivers with Turkish whitewall copies, lazy caravan owners with ancient cross-ply tires on their mud hut or the brainless messie neighbor who parks and turns his family car where he was rearranging a Euro pallet of Spax screws yesterday.
In such cases, the diagnosis is simple: tire burst, perforated, flat.
Pfffff!
It’s all the uglier when the tire is looooong to deflate and forces the man of the world to make the weekly Canossa trip to the gas station. You’re not only angry about the tire, but also about the generally stingy system pressure setting, which is barely enough to pump 3 bar into the black tire.
Because even with such a slow-motion puncture, the tire has to come off if there is a hole in the top, it can’t hurt to rule out a source of error that can be tested cheaply and easily – the valve.
Nothing is easier to test than your own sputum.
It is watery, transparent, bakes a little and creates bubbles.
Even with low residual pressure, small bubbles reveal the ailing valve – saving you a trip to the rubber master.
