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I suspect anyone who suggests that has never actually tried to submerge an entire tire in water. at 62 pounds per cubic foot you'll have to push really hard.
Remove and inspect is a good start. Spray with soapy water works well. Finally if you have a suitable tank, bucket, or bowl set the tire in soapy water while your friend holds it vertically and rotates. Most leaks I've had were found with the spray method.
My most persistent leaky tires have been on my 2002 PT Cruiser where the chrome over aluminum plating is Chrysler terrible and flakes off, particularly around the valve stem. No shop was able to deal with it properly, so when I put tires on it last time I arranged to have them pull the tires and then I took them home and ground and wire brushed all the chrome out of the valve stem holes with a high speed grinder.
Check around the outside edges of the valve stems.
i have done it, but i did it the easy way, i put half the tire in water, waited until the water stabilized, then rotated the tire. when discount tire checked my tire for leaks, they did submerge the tire in water, but they used a press to hold the tire down.
One of the above. All of these can be checked and eliminated with a dunk test. If it was flat and you refilled it and it hasn't gone flat again, it could be possible that any of the above are still true, just that the tire/wheel is not on the right orientation to cause the leak again?
Probably was the valve was askew and the air leaked out. I have had that happen on occasion. I usually then take my valve tool and ensure the valve it screwed in tight. I back it off a bit and snug it down. I then soap the valve to see if it is leaking.
Similar problem here (sort of). Our dashboard light would come on indicating very low pressure in one tire. We'd fill it and sometimes we'd have no problem for a couple of months. But sometimes the light would come on the next day. Very unpredictable.
It turned out to be a bad stem value, not a bad tire.
I had that happen once, just like the op tire went flat, aired it up and no further problem.
Yeah, in my case, I'd bet it was because the inflator (Ryobi hand-held) has one of those levers on the chuck that lock the chuck securely onto the stem. Being a clumsy ass, I jiggled it somehow, disturbing the stem and causing the air to leak. When re-inflating, I used my old Sears AC-powered inflator which does not have that lever. It has just the regular ball chuck like at gas stations and easier to work with.
I guess no one make a battery-operated rechargeable inflator with just the regular ball chuck.
I have been encountering the same problem this past week. Tire was low. Aired it up and it held air for 2 days fine. Was down again in the morning. Aired it up again and soaped it down. No leak.It then held air for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning. Came out of work Friday and it had just 16 pounds. Just checked it again and no nail or leak, so I replaced the valve stem core. I even ran the pressure up to about 60 pounds when checking for a leak, nothing though.
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