When driving and you hear a “thwacking” or “slapping” sound, try moving the wheel left and right and see if it feels different.
If you notice an improved lack of traction on one side of the car or the other, you probably have a flat tire. Turn on your blinker or your hazard lights and pull off the side of the road.
One thing that everybody should know about cars, and I mean EVERYBODY, should know how to fix a flat tire. Buckle up, Cowboys, we are about to learn a thing or two about tires.
What Does a Flat Tire Feel Like When Driving?
A flat tire will feel a little weird when you’re driving. I mean, your car will likely pull to the right or left during acceleration and braking, or even when you are simply driving down the road.
Or, there could even be a noise from one of the four corners of your vehicle that resembles rhythmic slapping.
Your vehicle is meant to drive down the road with as much contact with the road as possible, and without air in one tire, you will be unable to stop as quickly, turn, or maintain road contact during a storm.
This leads to the other reason why you may want to take the few moments to walk around your vehicle before you drive every time to be sure nothing looks out of place. Anyone can do this, and I mean ANYONE!
It doesn’t make any difference if you think you don’t know anything about cars; just allow yourself the power to choose something that just doesn’t look right to you. Trust your instincts.
What To Do If You Get a Flat Tire?
A flat tire is no fun. Some folks will take their vehicle to the nearest tire repair shop and are willing to pay top dollar, just to avoid the headache of dealing with the stress of putting the spare tire on.
If you’re reading this, you probably decided to fix it yourself. If that’s the case, take out your spare tire kit. This kit is typically located near your spare tire under a panel in the trunk, or to the right or left inside the trunk.
It’s secured in some form so it doesn’t rattle around in the trunk, but you should not have to work too hard to pull out the jack, tire iron, and the jack “Spinner” that you will need to use together to make it easier to lift the jack/down by generating enough mechanical advantage.
If you are standing there holding these tools, but inside you are freaking out trying to figure out how to use these three tools together, just put them down. Take 3 deep breaths and think, “Do I have a number I can call on the back of my insurance card?” (Chances are, you do.)
Get out your wallet and check to see if your insurance card is in there; if not, check the glovebox. It should be a little card that is no bigger than a business card with the name of an insurance company on it.
I should mention to make sure the insurance is valid, because I do not want you to end up with unexpected charges if you had only had to wait an hour or two for your friend to come help you.
If you’re driving down the road and you experience a flat tire, the first thing you need to do is find a safe place to pull over. Then, after making sure it is safe to do so, and keeping in mind there could be many different vehicles coming down the road, I would perform a visual inspection.
Is it low tire pressure, a slow leak, a complete blowout, or some other issue? If you don’t know how to identify these issues, scroll to the top of this article and read.
What Happens If You Drive on a Flat Tire?
You should never drive on a flat tire, and only do this if you are getting to a safe spot to change the tire.
The more you drive on a flat tire, you wear away the rubber on the inside of the tire, making chunks come off as the wheel and a chunk rub against it. This easy fix becomes a more costly replacement.
Then, you risk losing at some point the inside of the wheel, which will cost a lot of money. Plus, you won’t have any traction on that corner of your car, which means you will be trending toward an accident if you do drive normally.
You want to slowly get to a safe spot, look for an easy visual check, determine what happened, and get out your tire change kit.
If you don’t have a tire changing kit, or you don’t feel comfortable changing it out, pull out your insurance card (from the glove box or your wallet/purse) and call the number on the “Roadside Assistance” section on the back of that card.
How Far Can You Drive on a Flat Tire When There’s No Other Option?
When It Comes to Driving on a Flat Tire, Only Do It If You Have No Other Choice!
Unless you’re pulling off the road to somewhere safe to change that flat tire, do not drive on it! The only time you should drive on a flat tire is if you’ve only just found out 1) there are some safe places to pull off the highway, or 2) you’re pulling to a safe place to change it.
Consider it this way: your tire is like a spring, absorbing the impacts of debris, bumps, potholes, and other roadway issues.
If you remove all the air from your tire (it’s flat), then all that energy from the inherent problems of the road goes straight into your rim and bends that metal.
If you bend that metal, then your wheel is no longer round, and you cannot balance it at the nearest tire shop. The result is to buy a new wheel.
Types of Flat Tires
While “flat tire” is an overarching term that describes almost any problem with your tire, there are a few types I want to point out to differentiate.
#1. A Little Under Pressure.
As the seasons change from spring to summer, summer to fall, fall to winter, so too is the temperature outside affecting the pressure in your tires. How can that be? Well, as the temperatures fall, all that outside influence on the air molecules in your tire is less and less, so they’re just not going to be moving around as much.
Long story short, when those air molecules are not moving around as much, they are not pressing against the sidewalls of your tire as much.
So, as you’re coming into fall and if you’ve taken your summer tires off, you’re likely noticing some loss of PSI (maybe a 5 PSI difference).
There are a few ways you can visually diagnose this issue without having any mechanical inclination.
First, take a gander at your tire and, while looking down, see if there’s a portion of the tire that is bowed out or distended at the bottom – the part that is touching the ground.
If that area looks a little flabby, you probably have low tire pressure and should inflate it to factory-recommended specs.
Another way you can visually diagnose this issue, if you have a newer car, is to scroll through the menu items on your dash or center console. Most cars have a screen on them that can tell you what the tire pressures are on your four tires.
Even better, if your car does have a screen, it will alert you with a tire pressure warning light in your instrument cluster that either also illuminates or pops up to tell you that you have low tire pressure.
And finally, if you are noticing that your fuel mileage has diminished significantly or even by one or 2 miles per gallon (on average) and nothing else about your car is wrong, then you should consider checking your tire pressure.
#2. Leaking.
Another type of flat tire is called a “leaking tire“. A leaking tire occurs when you have some sort of debris, nail, screw, pin, piece of glass or other sharp object that has lodged itself in your tread or tire that is causing a slow leak.
When you get out of your car next, use your ears and listen for any sort of small hissing sound. If you do hear a sound like this, then you probably have a leaking tire. Or if you don’t hear anything, you may still have a small leak.
These types of leaks are sometimes very hard to diagnose because your car may lose one psi over a month, or you may never even notice.
However, if you find yourself continually bringing your tires back up to full air and you don’t know exactly why, and they are brand new, you may have a leaking tire.
#3. Completely Flat.
Let’s say you leave the party at 1 AM – you walk out to your car, one of the tires is completely flat, flabby, and the rim is resting on the ground. Grab your phone, turn on that light, and take a few pictures of your tire in case there’s a vandalism issue going on here.
More than likely it’s not a vandalism issue and you just happened to ruin the tire because you ran over a screw when you came to that party. That said, it’s always beneficial to be prudent in this circumstance.
Start at the sidewall and run your fingers all around the outside of the tire that’s facing you. Feel for any large markings or punctures that should indicate someone has “slashed“ your tires.
At this point, if you do not know how to change a tire, this would be the moment to pull out your Insurance card and call AAA or who your car insurance policy allows for roadside assistance.
#4. Blowout.
A blowout is the most dangerous kind of flat tire. This usually occurs when you’re moving down the highway at a good speed, and suddenly you hear a pop noise, and then arrhythmic “THWAPP THWAPP THUNK THUPUPUPUPUPU” as you’re driving down the highway.
This is a situation that you should pull off to the side of the road and start pulling out your spare tire kit, or call AAA.
It should also be noted that most insurance companies have a roadside assistance program with a good number on the back of your insurance card.
After inspecting the damage, you might find that your tread is no longer connected to the sidewall, and there’s a large gash in your tire, which also resembles a big problem.
You will still change this tire just like you would any other tire, you will just have to jack up the car, maybe a little higher, so you can get enough lift on the rim because now there’s no structural element to the tire.
How to Stop the Trouble Getting a Flat Tire
This could be a question with a straightforward answer, and that is that the best way to prevent a flat tire is to prevent a flat tire.
Please hear me out, if you start checking your tires before you drive every time (that would be a new habit), not habitually driving on the shoulder of the road or through construction sites, and if you checked your workspace afterwards for things like screws, nails, sharp wood pieces if you were doing some woodwork out in your driveway, you could avoid having quite a few flat tires.
Or, you know, you could go spend some money and buy these stupid things called “run-flat” tires, which will allow you to drive almost 50 miles on a flat tire.
That sounds good, except they are heavier than the standard tire, more expensive than the standard tire, and you will have to replace the tire if you get a flat, as opposed to plugging/fixing a standard tire.
Filling your tire with Nitrogen (Costco provides this free to members) will not only slow down potential losses due to slow leaks, but the benefits are still being debated.
I treat tires as a “wear item”; a continuously worn item. Likewise, similar to checking your oil, coolant, brake fluid, or under your car for leaks/breaks, perhaps it’s time to treat your tires lovingly before heading off on your adventures.