Thread: Check your Tire Valve Stems!!!

I was flying north on the 5 and transitioned to the 118 heading home from work when someone honked at me letting me know that my left rear tire was very low. I noticed that the rear was slightly squirmy, but otherwise was still driving fine. When I pulled off the freeway, I noticed that the valve stem was at half mast. Luckily, I was able to call out my wife to bring my air compressor and after filling up I duct taped the valve upright which amazingly was able to hold the air in, at least to get to the only open tire shop in the valley. They were closing but were cool enough to change out the valve, plus I gave the guy a pretty good tip for staying after hours.

While the new rubber valve was being installed, I noticed that my other valves were cracked at the base. By just tilting them, air would escape. I figured the speed I was driving must have caused the one particular valve to failed due to the centrifigul force. After doing some research on the internet, I learned that there was a major recall of rubber tire valves last year that very few people are aware of.

Since the other valves were cracked I made a few calls and decided to take the truck to America's Tires to replace all 4 rubber tire valves, including the new rubber valve installed the day before with Stainless Steel valves for peace of mind.

CHECK YOUR TIRE VALVES FOR CRACKS AND REPLACE ASAP!!!

Yeah, two of mine did that on my truck when it had 8-10 thousand miles on it. One out in the parking lot at work and one out in needles right as I was getting back on the freeway. They looked fine but if you tilted them they would let air out. I replaced the rest when I got back to the valley.

That is what caused a lot of the Firestone tire blow outs

Lost one of my tires to a bad rubber valve stem. Was coming back from Irvine after a truck show and I heard a sound like a jet engine going off. It was a rear tire deflating on the 15 freeway. by the time I got over and stopped, the tire was trashed. Bought truck with fancy wheels and tires already on it. I don't get it, $4000.00 worth of wheels and tires and they put rubber stems on. Went straight to my favorite tire shop and had the stainless stems put on all the way around.

"gotpoof" aka ryan lost one in pismo last year. We stopped and just randomly with the trailer on it actually blew out..

I think the problem was with the ford stems in particular. The rubber ones in general don't seem too bad as long as they are good quality. I've never had any problems other than those stock ford ones. I was pretty lucky with mine, those tires were over $300 apiece.

Nope, not particular to Ford. A bad batch of them got out into the world last year. Read about it right after I lost one on the 405 while Judy was in UCLA.