I bought a '96 GLE with the honeycomb rims(ugly). Like a month later i bought a set four 16" 5-spoke SE wheels with tires. Two Dunlop sport A2's in front and Bridgestones in back. When it started getting really cold I noticed that one of my Dunlops in front would lose a good amount of pressure, especially in the last few weeks. I dont know if its because of the cold or if its a coincidence because its like 5 degrees F some nights.
When I fill the tires up to 33psi or so, like two weeks later its almost completely flat. A really slow leak. Today i took the wheel off and poured soapy water to check for leaks. I found two leaks about 4 inches apart from each other making constant small bubbles. The leaks are right where the rim meets the tire on the outer side.
What can i do to fix this? Is my tire or rim F'ed up?(rim looks pretty straight to me) Maybe the guy i bought it from put the tire on the rim improperly?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

anyone?

10 char

 

you might have a messed up bead. You can take it to a tire shop and they will tell you if they can fix it or not. Sometimes if you remount the tire, it seals better. They will usually check the entire tire and fix whatever is causing it to leak.

Just call around and ask different shops how much they charge. Some places will be nice and tell you to just bring it in and they'll check it out for free.

 

Thanx for the input man. Anyone else?

 

Bump.........

 

Last bump.....

 

your bead seat is probaly messed up or it wasnt "seated" right. have your tire guy check the rim runout to see if its the rim when he takes the tire off

 

I had a slow leak where I would look 20psi a week, I decided to take it to a tire shop, and they patches it up for $20, they said there were 3 nails in there and one was very close to destroying the whole tire.

get it patched up.

 

Or you can go the cheap and unbalanced way with "Slime". Pour that stuff in your tire and your leaks will be gone. The stuff really does work. But throws the wheel/tire balance off.

 

Thanks a lot guys for your help. I'll go to the tire shop tommorow. I hope its not serious or expensive.

 

I recently experienced the same ... and on one tire, when I paid attention, I saw there was a cut in the sidewall outside on the passenger side ... it was enuf deep that i had to buy new tires ..

and then the same thing repeated on the other set driver side and i had no clue why the pressure was dropping ... when i took it to the tire shop, they showed me there were 3 cuts on the sidewall inside (face of tire that's not visible as we see but it's the inside one) ... and hence had to buy another set ...

crappy Goodyears ...

so check if there are any cuts in the sidewall ...