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2007 (non touring edition) tires chronically leaking

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Alicewave, Oct 30, 2020.

  1. Alicewave

    Alicewave Member

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    Hi Folks:

    As many of you, my car sits a lot these days, but I try to take it out at least twice a week for a half-hour or so. My tires have developed an issue of leaking chronically. I have goodyear 80k all weather tires which are under warranty. Two days ago they machined the rims and remounted them and the two front tires are already down to 20 and 15 PSI. So I called them back and made an appt for them to do a submerge test on Tuesday and to prepare myself that the wheels might have hairlines cracks. This would not be surprising to me, I can't say that I've babied this car and we have these brutal sharp edged curbs and potholes all over town. The valve stems were replaced last time I had the chronic leak issue.

    What are my options for wheel replacement considering I plan to replace this car in a year or two?
     
    #1 Alicewave, Oct 30, 2020
  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    have you looked around for salvage yards, ebay?
     
    #2 bisco, Oct 30, 2020
  3. Alicewave

    Alicewave Member

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    Well they did the submerge test and they say the wheels are fine, they did something to the bead around the rim and something to the valve stems. I don't know if this is always an issue with Goodyear tires or what, but my partner had almost the identical prius except from 2009 and experienced the same chronic tire leakage
     
    #3 Alicewave, Nov 3, 2020
  4. fotomoto

    fotomoto Senior Member

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    Then I would suggest looking for cheap steel wheels (search topic: winter wheels) and, if looks are important, some nice used Toyota wheel covers.

    GOOD LUCK!
     
    #4 fotomoto, Nov 3, 2020
    Alicewave likes this.
  5. jessiejosco

    jessiejosco Member

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    I doubt the rims are your problem. I have used original equipment 6 spoke aluminum rims as winter rims for 10 years. A lot of the paint has peeled off and they don't look great, but they don't leak. Our other Prius uses the 16 inch touring rims like you have for winter tires. They are also very corroded looking but hold air. The main problem I have had with the touring rims is that they can get bent pretty easily.

    Where I live we have salt air and salted roads in the winter, so rim corrosion is a big problem here. I have found that the aluminum rims hold up better than the steel ones. The shops here pretty routinely use "bead sealer" when they mount tires to seal up any pitting and it works.
    I would try another tire shop.
     
    #5 jessiejosco, Nov 5, 2020
  6. Alicewave

    Alicewave Member

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    They've worked on the tires twice now and say there are no cracks in the wheels, they use the bead sealer. But the Front driver side is still leaking, not all the way to empty like before but still enough that I feel like I can't rely on the car. I don't know what else to do. It gets parked in the garage and we haven't had any salt around here yet.
     
    #6 Alicewave, Nov 19, 2020
  7. Alicewave

    Alicewave Member

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    I don't have separate rims for my snow tires and I haven't put the snows on yet. I probably wont since I work from home and can use my partner's Rav4 if needed.
     
    #7 Alicewave, Nov 19, 2020
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