Patching a leaking tire at Ee Henn Trading, Taman Melaka Baru

The Toyota brand runs strong in my family (even before counting those rebadged Toyotas by our "2nd Local Automobile Manufacturer"). Due to some complicated storyline best delivered over a round of beer, latest one coming under my wing is a 1st Gen Toyota Fortuner. As I'm not particularly obsessed about SUV's, can only say a Google search identifies this one as an AN50 AN60 model. Though I could not really find what is the difference between the AN50 and AN60 - if anyone have any clue, do drop a comment below....

Exaggerated stock photo for illustration purposes only - not my actual car.... 

Anyway, recently I came to notice that the front right tire was slowly but surely deflating over a short period of time. Specifically, in just less than 1 week, the tire pressure can drop from 220kPa to 160kPa. Public service announcement here - there is no real way to tell visually if your tires are under-inflated, even those "normal" tires (not run-flat). Unnoticeable if any differences in handling, at least at low, city-driving speeds. Wouldn't want to risk evaluating on the highway.

Anyway, I always had in my mind (far, far in the back of my mind) to get it fixed. However, the combination of genuinely busy work schedule plus worry about the time it might take to get it fixed meant that I had put off the repair for several weeks now. So, the routine was to head to the nearest petrol station every week to "top-up" air. Occasionally, I have used a portable cigarette-lighter-powered air pump to fill up - however, that takes a very, very long time and is quite noisy.

Finally, today, after running some errands in town, decided to bite the bullet and get it done once and for all. At the advice of my wife, who had a recent positive experience, we stopped by Ee Henn Trading (the actual name of the tire shop) at Taman Melaka Baru, Batu Berendam.

Ee Henn Trading, right at the traffic lights next to the Hong Leong Bank

Upon arrival, found there was just 1 car in-progress, and the boss was casually seated at the shop entrance. After alighting and giving a brief problem description, he got straight to work on my car. He jacked up the car on the right side, in order to remove the tire - since it was a "real" 4x4 (not like those pseudo city SUV's that were never meant to go off-road), the suspension had quite a lot of travel so it had to be jacked up quite high until the tire was completely off the ground. Once that was done, the tire was removed and inflated before submerging into the water tank, in order to trace the puncture. Sure enough eventually he managed to find the culprit - a really small nail roughly 2cm long and perhaps no more than 2mm in diameter. That would explain why the air loss was so slow....

Having removed the nail, he then proceeded to patch up the spot with the tire patch kit, and in no time, the tire was fixed. All in all, it took roughly 15mins (to be fair, practically no queue) and cost RM10 - a fair price to pay in my humble opinion. Definitely a good experience here, and will come again in future.

And - now I don't have to worry any more about my weekly tire inflation routine! 😀

In this case, I gauged the risk to be low since I did not travel long distance or at high speed, and fortunately, nothing happened to my Fortuner. Of course, my advice is to always get your car fixed up as soon as you can, even though it may appear a small or benign matter, as until then, the risk and dealing with the consequences rest entirely on your own shoulders.