I have a tire problem that so far has stumped all the shops I’ve been to. I recently had my stock Evo X wheels painted. Once I got them back went to a Sears auto center to put the stock tires back on the rims. A few days later my light comes on for low tire pressure. I drive right back and have them look at it but dont find anything and tell me they re-sealed it…but it still leaks. Repeat this scenario for 3 other tire shops with all the same response.
Sitting overnight the car will lose only 1-2psi. When I drive to work (maybe 10 minutes) it will lose about 5psi. Filled up to 35psi one night and drove on the highway until 30 minutes later I was down to just above 20psi. It seems I only really lose pressure when driving around.
Saturday I had the wheel off and in a bucket of water. Each tire shop also did this but I wanted to be sure. After filling to max psi (40) and pressing down on the tire as I turn it I couldnt find anything. I filled the bucket enough to cover the whole vavle stem thinking it might be that.
Obviously something happened when prepping the wheels to be painted, when they were painted or when the auto center mounted the tires but no one has any clue what and how to fix it so I want to tap the great minds here.
Anyone ever hear of a problem like this? Any solutions?
Crank the pressure up to 50 psi and submerge the whole damn thing in a kiddy pool full of water.
1 of 2 scenarios would be common. 1. your valve stem, just sitting there it doesn’t/barely leaks. However, if you push it to the side or so, it’ll leak much more.
2. I’m assuming the tire techs at sears are retarded. This is why people come to swerve to get wheels mounted with nice equiptment. Trying to stretch a low-pro tire with a stiff sidewall onto a large wheel often is a bit of a pain even with the correct equiptment for the job. The machinery used at sears is shitty and there’s a good chance your inside ring where it seals to the bead got sliced a little bit due to shitty machinery and not caring about other peoples shit. This occasionally even happens here with the good equiptment used. However, if and when this does happen, you need to remove the small slice of rubber or it will leak.
so its 1 wheel? I had this problem recently and it ended up being a cracked wheel
The problem is that the paint is on the part of the wheel that the tire seats to causing air to leak through. If you bring me the wheels I can dismount the tires and use a polishing wheel to remove any loose paint or debris and then re-mount the tires with bead sealer. I will also replace the valve stems, just to be on the safe side. That should do the trick;)
Paul @ Swerve MS
716-685-8600
I would bring it to you except your just over 6 hours from me 
but thank you for the advice. If you dont mind having a wheel shipped to you (I’ll pay to ship it back) let me know. I might go that route.
Its only 1 wheel. If I had the choice I would have gone to a performance shop where I know they can comfortably mount low profile tires but there are none to be found in a close distance to me. Just a million mom and pop shops. I’m going to keep searching for a good shop near me but if I cant find one then worst case I ship it.
I thought the valve stem also after having turned the wheel in water so I filled it up more to cover the stem and after playing with that too didnt find anything.
I would normaly go to a mavis over sears but it was the only place open on sunday and I was excited to get my new rims on:cool: