Bewildered wrote:
I was reading a Popular Mechanics in a waiting room, and they had an article
on how to fix a flat.

They said that tire repairs involved putting a patch on the inside of the
tire. That is how mine were fixed in the past, but the last few have had
plugs put in. The plugs seemed to work fine. What is the proper method.

They also recommended a can of air and material to plug the hole for
temporary repairs, and then getting a real patch. I was told that those
cans ruin the inside surface so a patch can't be used. What is the story
there?

Those aerosol cans contain propane as a propellant to keep the liquid
rubber liquid. A tire full has obvious dangers. Nowadays tire places
are a little more wary of the problem, but it would still be nice to
mention it when you need a tire fixed which you had to give a quick
inflate to in order to get out of downtown Baghdad on a Saturday night.


The fear with plugs is that when they do fail, they could possibly blow
all the way out and leave a big hole, i.e. a blowout; whereas if a
patch fails, it's more likely to just be a relatively slow leak. Never
actually heard of it happening, but it seems like it could.