The ongoing bead sealing issues in northern winter-

Joined
Dec 23, 2013
Messages
1,242
Location
Minnesota
I was reading and thinking about this ongoing situation. FWIW, when I worked a tire shop in the late 1960s, it wasn't an issue. The most problematic aluminum wheels were rarer and not usually on cars that were winter drivers. I was one of quite a few that would use snow tires mounted on extra steel wheels on their drive wheels for a quick swap. Later, it wasn't rare for me to experience leaks with the OEM aluminum wheels. In more recent years, I went back the same as long ago using dedicated steel wheels with winter tires on all 4 corners and haven't had any further issues.
 
What were you reading?
Please provide a link to help with context.
I experience no such issues.
Perhaps it isn't the ongoing issue you claim.
 
I'm interested to hear about this bead sealing issue. I'm about 50 and have lived in the northeast all my life. I've never had a bead failure and hearing of one has been rare for me. I have a good friend who owns a tire shop, I will ask him his experience as well.
 
Yep, have had aluminum wheels for at least twenty years in central PA winters and never had what you describe.
 
Might be talking about the bead sealing issues with chrome wheels. The chrome peels off on the inside lip and causes sealing issues. I had this issue on some boat trailer wheels that never saw salt water.
 
It can happen. I had to take the 20+ year old MGM in as I had a tire losing air. Wal*Mart TLE found the wheel had a bit of corrosion that was leaking. They cleaned the bead and remounted the tire and it was fine for the rest of our ownership experience.


That was a 20+ year old wheel, so it's hard to be really concerned.

It can happen, but it's probably not accurate to call it on-going as if it's happening to everyone.

I suspect it's more likely winter exposes a marginally seated tire on an aluminum wheel. Wal*Mart TLE installed the tire that was leaking, so they probably didn't clean the bead well enough during the install. The cold exposed this and that tire had to be revisited.
 
Just experienced this recently and I don't live in a heavily salted area. Installed brand new winter tires 5 years ago on alloy rims which I bought used, but I made sure to wire wheel off the sealing surface perfectly. Now getting a minor rim leak and upon inspection, there's corrosion across the entire sealing area. Bead sealer was used too.
 
Both aluminum and steel wheels suffer from bead sealing issues due to corrosion. I've personally had to deal with this on nearly every car I owned. It may not have been a big problem in the 60s because people rarely kept their cars more than 10 years in the rust belt. I usually experience this problem at the 15-year mark.
 
... but I made sure to wire wheel off the sealing surface perfectly....
Did bead sealer cover all the exposed area? I usually sand blast, then repaint the cleaned area for a long-term fix. I believe sand blasting is a superior way to remove corrosion.
 
I've run into this issue - once. And as was mentioned, it didn't happen until the vehicle as roughly 20 years old... In other words, it took a while, and in normal circumstances in the salt belt, I've moved on well before year 20. This was a different cicumstance.
 
There are a number of threads on this site that can be accessed by searching 'bead sealing'. I'm also relating my experience which is long since I'm older. I will talk with tire shop owners/managers 'picking their brain'. We are more recently seeing liquid pretreatment of pavement used with snow approaching and the 'salt shaker' plow truck may have additives to help the salt to perform better. Some of these type of products may help or harm our wheels and cars. When living in Michigan 50 years ago, power plant cinders were used-tough on paint. I have sometimes had worn out tires simply dismounted and will refurb the wheels before remounting new tires. Since my early experience in an independent tire shop, I have generally since followed the 'tire world'. I remember the problems and quality problems with the early Goodyear Polyglas tires. Split rims, especially rusted ones, no thank you. The owners finally bought a cage after we put a ring through the roof. A different time.
 
Did bead sealer cover all the exposed area? I usually sand blast, then repaint the cleaned area for a long-term fix. I believe sand blasting is a superior way to remove corrosion.

Yes, this was a small independent tire installer and he was more than happy to have me assist with the install. I personally made sure to wire brush the rims perfectly and I do recall him using a thin layer of bead sealer around the tire as would any installer. The corrosion somehow started prying itself into the bead sealer around one of the tire weights to eventually create a leak. Probably the way the tire weight was setup allowed for this small site to be a corrosion collection point. IMO I don't think there would be an advantage to sand blasting vs wire wheel when it comes to surface prep, but painting over it would probably be the important part.

No tire shop is going to do that great of a job cleaning off rims. They just need it to not leak during the 1 year warranty period, of which is easily accomplished by slapping bead sealer on everything. To properly wire wheel the sealing surface on 4 rims is probably a 10-15 minute job, of which no tire installer would want to commit vs 30 seconds of sealant.
 
Back
Top