Originally Posted by Idle

Concerning tire plugging.....

This was popular on tubeless tires back in the 60's and 70's. Tires then were bias ply with nylon cord. The plugs were usually made of rubber that had been dipped in a sealing goo that both lubed up the plug and glued it into the tire.

Then radials became popular and rubber plugs would not flex enough to keep from leaking. So cord plugs were introduced and they worked very well.

Then bias tires all went away and steel belted radials took over from nylon belted radials. After that no plug was a sure thing since the steel belts would eat away at the sides of the plug and maybe, or maybe not, cause them to fail.

Tire shops got tired of repairing the same hole over and over so the inside patch became the gold standard of tire patching. More expensive up front but you never came back to find your tire flat from a slow leak after a tire 'repair'.

I carry a plugging kit in my production truck since time is money. A plug will get you back to the real world where a tire can be repaired or replaced, but with todays tires I don't think there is any plug, at least none that I know of, that can be trusted over the long haul.