Bent Rims Might Be The Cause Of Your Leaky Tires

If you are starting to have problems with low air in some of your tires, you might suspect that the tires are bad. While this could be true, there is another reason that tires can allow air to escape. This reason involves dented rims. The rims on your tires are there for several purposes, but one important purpose is to seal the tires. If the rims are dented or damaged, they may not be doing their job. Here are several things to understand about rims and leaky tires.

What are rims?

The rim on a tire is the part that holds the tire onto the wheel of the car. To see the rim, you may need to remove the hub cap on the tire. When you purchase new tires, the shop will mount the new tires onto the rims, ensuring that they are sealed completely. Sealing them prevents leaks from occurring where the tires meet the rims.

How do leaks occur?

While rims work great for sealing tires, they can leak if they are bent, dented, or damaged in any way, and rims can get damaged from potholes. When you are driving and hit a pothole, it causes the tire to dip into the hole for a split second and this puts pressure and trauma on the tire and its components. Each time this happens, it could lead to a dent, and this could potentially lead to an air leak.

How is this problem fixed?

If you are having problems with leaks on one or more of your tires, you should have the tires examined by an auto repair shop. They will examine the rims carefully to see if there are signs of dents or wear and tear. If they discover minor dents, they may be able to bend the rims enough to remove the dents.

When the dents are extreme, the only way to fix the problem is to replace the rims with new ones. New rims will be free of dents and wear and tear, and they will seal completely to the tires on your vehicle.

It the rims on your car are not bent or damaged, the shop will inspect the tires for leaks. Holes or punctures in the tires would be the only other reason your tires are leaking air.

Driving with tires that have slow leaks can be dangerous, which is why you should get your tires checked out soon by a car repair  shop in your area.