Johnhav430

I knew this last fall when I put the snows on, that one of the all seasons had a leak. When I got the tires out of the shed to put them back on a couple weeks ago, one was completely flat.

I messed with it and stupidly plugged it where I had marked it and taken a screw out last fall. But I also remember I saw no air bubbles, decided to plug anyway. Sure enough it was still leaking.

Soaped it up last week and found bubbles at the bead, tried deflating/inflating, prying, even of all things tried to slip a piece of duct tape between the tire and rim (now that was totally stupid it leaked a ton that way).

Broke down and took it to the pros, who basically dismounted the tire, cleaned the rim with a wire brush, cleaned the bead, replaced the valve stem, applied bead sealant around the outside and inside surfaces, remounted, balanced, and 21 hours later, no leaking.

I was curious what the inside of the rim was gonna look like, here it is. The big red arrow is where air came out. The blue arrows represent a uniformly eroded area where black paint is gone--it's where elements would normally get in, to the inside of the area where you can touch with say a screwdriver (you cannot touch this area from the outside, but water can). The red lines is where the bead of the tire would make contact with the rim. Odd how all that black paint to the right is missing--not sure if that's corrosion or from handling. There is also a smaller patch like that to the left.

I know that most of us will never get into this detail but what the heck. I really didn't want to have to get new replica rims and chance that. I saw a LS430 with them yesterday, and maybe it's me, something looked off about the rims. You can tell authentic ones because the JWL symbol is on the outside surface.

btw do our cars come with chrome, or black valve stems? My spare has black.

Now the Pilot Sport A/S 3+ are gonna wait even longer....

BCT

Thank you for sharing. That is very informative. Is this a chrome or regular/painted rim? 17 or 18 in? Regardless, it is interesting to see that the inside of the rim is painted black. I do not think I have seen it before.

Johnhav430

It's a regular 18" rim. The outsides are corroded here and there, but doesn't bother me (paint flaking etc.--actually no other car has that, and the Maxima is 21 y.o.!). I am thinking that most of us will never watch over someone's shoulder as they are dismounting, cleaning, remounting, and balancing. I could have learned this in the shop my uncle was running but the machines were broken. So I got a chance to see how much care the tech put into the job, cleaning both the rim and the bead on the tire. imho that's what you get in a small shop that's not rushed (I mean so small there is no lift--a guy came in with tractor tires and a wheelbarrow tire, that were leaking and I'm talking small). I actually thought they were going to mark the tire and remount in same position.

He said no it will be rebalanced, that's part of the job (and I don't think it's simple nor precise when we think about how exact the balancer is, v. lining up based on a crayon mark). One sees hints of integrity while watching. Such as he chalked the "Outside" designation on the tire to remind himself of the orientation. Upon remounting, he removed the chalk as well as removing my yellow crayon on the tire and on the rim. Along the same lines, this is why I am sold on indies and avoid dealerships in general.

Not sure if anyone here has replica rims--I really wonder if they are just fine? The pics online show the JWL and VIA symbols, but I wonder if that can be faked? Our rims don't even have the VIA symbol. Brand new reps are almost 1/2 of a used OE rim.

edit My yellow mark at 1 o'clock is where the big red arrow is. The reason the black paint is scraped at the outer edge is my screwdriver when messing around with it deflated. Not worth it to try--take it to a shop! (YouTube people place a bottle jack on the sidewall and lift a car to try to pop it off)

StanVanDam

It does seem odd that the inside is painted black - that's an OEM wheel? I have chrome valve stems with matching chrome caps on my OEM chrome 17s.

My 17" OEM chrome wheels also had bead corrosion, causing 2-3psi loss per month. It is definitely a common issue with these aging wheels. However, the OEM chromes balance beautifully and require almost no weights - 9 years on the same Primacy MXV4 tires, minimal mileage.

I went aftermarket non-replica for my winter wheels, and slightly regret it. They are lug-centric, not hub-centric, so I had to do a few rounds of rebalancing at various shops before figuring out that the tire shop franchise owner was wrong when he said I didn't need hub centering rings. However, these aftermarket wheels seem to deform after hitting potholes, because I feel like the balance is off again after 9 years of hitting potholes on these winter wheels. At $160CAD/wheel though, going aftermarket was a significant cost savings over paying OEM $400-500USD/wheel. However, the hassle and money I've spent on rebalancing reduces that cost savings.

I will strongly consider OEM if I ever need wheels again - maybe a non-chrome option to reduce occurences of bead corrosion/flaking.

Peacebay

Yup, I know I mentioned it before but my car lived its whole life in Palm Beach, FL—never saw winter or speck of salt ever.

Even still my front two wheels started leaking about a year ago and my beads looked almost exactly like this. Point is, it’s pretty common for these 18’s for whatever reason and can happen in pretty much any environment.

Johnhav430

interesting so my chrome valve caps might be original? Although the spare with the Dunlop original tire has a black one.

Too bad I didn't ask for the cap back, I notice they even have a tiny rubber gasket inside. But the valve itself looks like rubber with a plastic chrome on it--the tech said he would like to replace it with new, and I ok'd it. No biggie one day when I get the Michelins I'm sure Costco is going to toss all 4 valve stems and replace with the black ones with green caps.

To my knowledge my rims are OE, because the one in the trunk is brand spanking new and looks like the other 4. The JWL marking is on the outside, where if the valve is at 6 o'clock, then the JWL would be at 3 o'clock. I notice online that replica rims have the JWL on the inside surface of the spokes. Also, my rims have a date stamp in 2005 which would make sense as the car was produced 9/05.

More than 2 days later the tire does not lose any air....it's the little things in life that can be annoying, and rewarding. It was leaking 5 lbs. per day--if it were 5 lbs. per week, I would have lived with it until I got new tires....

Johnhav430

Interesting my wife's GM SUV also needs lug centric balancing. At Costco, they have every adapter it seems under the sun. I did not see such an adapter at the shop I was at on Saturday. Also this time all 4 of my hub centric rings were stuck on the LS when I took the snows off. Good thing the OE wheels cannot be installed when they are still there. I hope I didn't lose any, I thought I placed all 4 back on the snow tire rims.

Yes, on my Maxima, 3 sets of aftermarket rims dented, so I went back to 16's, instead of 18's. I think OE are heavier, and intentionally more pothole resistant...

PERRYinLA

You did not mention how much the tire shop charged you to do something that could have easily been done by most DIYers at home.
I wrote up the whole procedure here:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/the...with-pics.html
The problem is it's not usually feasible to hover over the tire technician as he removes the old tire and puts on the new one.
But it's only during that short window when you can see if inner lip corrosion is going to be an issue or not, and do something about it.

My tires were worn and I needed a new set, anyway, so I talked my tire shop into removing just one old tire and giving me the rim to take home, where I could take my time to smooth the lip and seal it.
Then I went back to the shop, they put on a new tire and put it back on my car, and removed another old tire and gave me the rim.
Two more reps later and I got wheels that has lasted me 8 years with no further corrosion, or leakage.

Johnhav430

Given that the tire shop did it one time, and took maybe 20 min., and charged me $25, I figure that's better than having it dismounted, going home, coming back and having it remounted and balanced. AAA charges $17/wheel to mount and balance, so imho to charge $25 to address the leak is reasonable. To put it in perspective, BMW gets $80/wheel to mount and balance, and a BMW indie $30, so that's how I justified the $25 I was charged. I dunno about everyone here but these things bug me, so the $25 isn't the end of the world to have the problem gone. Maybe if I took the rim home and came back, they charge $20? So I save $5.

jayclapp

Valve stems are black rubber. There are chrome sleeves that fit over the stems and held in place by the caps. Costco replaces the stems every time new tires are installed. They have never failed to install the chrome sleeves. They do have a habit of wanting to use green caps, which I refuse to accept.

PERRYinLA

That is a very reasonable price for a dismount/rim cleanup/mount and balance, so I perfectly understand and agree with you to let them handle it.
Plus, as you noted, it was only one wheel giving you this problem.

My post was more for those of us with chrome rims, that might come to this thread - if one chrome wheel is corroding/leaking, it's likely all of them are.
The corrosion, I'm told, is not from the elements, but rather the corrosive chemicals used in the chroming process.
Which makes sense - the corrosion is coming from the very area where the regular surface ends and the chroming begins.
In such cases, it takes more than just a wire brush to fix the problem, and most tire shops aren't willing to take the time to do it right, or if they do, may charge you more than the rim is worth!

Johnhav430

gotcha, the interesting this is the tire shop told me moisture gets in there normally. I noticed just a week ago when I went to check my PSI, water came out as I put my gauge on the valve stem. Never really gave any of this any thought before the LS430....never had such a leak before which is why I mentioned I stupidly tried to DIY and put some duct tape between tire and rim. And yes, it made the leak even worse. So duct tape does NOT fix everything!