What's the opinion on repaired tyres? Noticed one of the rears on my Indy was flat and upon further inspection it's a nail right in the centre, so it'd be classed as a "minor" repair, where they put one of those mushroom things in.

In my tintop I'd have no qualms, but are these repairs good enough for a tyre that's going to be pushed?

Whilst I don't want to compromise safety obviously the tyre has done <1000 miles and I generally only swap tyres in pairs.

Provided you don't have major breakage of the tread belt cords this type of repair is no problem. With steel belted radials the normal repair methos is just a simple self vulcanising patch on the inside of the carcass.

In North America, the repair is classed as permanent if the tyre is removed from the wheel and patched from the inside. The patch is bonded on for good, the tire is literally as good as new. Re-balancing is probably a good idea. The process is much cheaper than replacing the tyre, and just as good. I have raced on tyres repaired in this manner, and have never had any problems, even in my (heavy!) Porsche.

in the UK it is the law the tyres have to be inspected from the inside when repair is carried out.
Tyre repair methods have changed a lot over the last 40 years it used to be plugs could just be inserted from the outside -- done properly this actually was a 100% reliable method but was made illegal because no-brains weren't checking for damage and forieign objects (eg the nail that caused the puncture) inside the tyre.

Mushroom repairs were in fashion for a long while but because they were slow, difficult and if done badly could actually cause more damage to the tread belts on steel tyres they fell out of fashion.

Simple patch became very popular but that is now getting overtaken by repair compounds injected into the nail hole, which again opens the doorway for the no-brains to cut corners.

[Edited on 17/5/06 by britishtrident]

[Edited on 17/5/06 by britishtrident]