I had a shop do some exhaust work. They replaced the pipe in-between the resonator and muffler. It was welded on, not bolted.

The next day, I have a flat tire. It was the tire closest to the muffler, right by where they were doing the welding. Upon inspection, I find a small gash on the INSIDE of the tire on the sidewall. The business refuses to resolve the issue, stating that their welding equipment can't cause damage to tires. Is this true?

 

do you really have to ask come on use your head

tire= rubber
rubber dose melt or burn or cut

 

not likely lol just bad luck

 

Wow thanks...

I'm asking if the sparks generated by welding equipment is hot enough to puncture a hole on the sidewall of a tire. I have no experience in welding equipment, which is why I am asking.

 

It definitely can, my roommate just put three holes in my air compressor line with cutoff wheel spray, I'm sure MIG slag is way hotter.

 

possibly, if the tire was laying flat on the ground. likely? no... and extremely unlikely on a tire that is mounted on a car.

 

If they had some serious spatter issues maybe, Any decent welding shop have decent welds that does not spatter. On the other hand, if they are "ghetto" or "redneck" and use a flux core wire welder then that stuff can pop like crazy. What kind of gash is it? Puncture, Abrasion, Melted?

 

yea its possible that the slag could have burnt a hole in the tire

 

Thanks for the responses.

The gash wasn't really a puncture or abrasion, so melted I suppose.

 

Are you talking to the workers or the manager of the shop? If the piping is all welded solid then more then likely they were welding under the car and could have melted a hole in the tire.

 

Yeah, they definitely were working under the car. I was watching the whole time. I already talked to the workers there and I brought them the whole wheel/tire as evidence. When they saw it, they tried giving me the run around and started denying their fault.

 

Talk to the manager, if the shop is part of a bigger chain then I would go higher up.

 

pics dude. We can tell within 1 sec if spatter or slag berries caused the puncture. Personally, as a pro welder for abotu 8 yrs and having set almost everything imaginable on fire...including my own *****... I kind of doubt it. Maybe a slag berry from stainless dual shield would be hot enough for long enough to lodge in the side wall of the tire and melt through. Even that is iffy and should be fairly obvious if it happened.

 

ok the way im thinking about it is ...the car is on a stand and the guy is under the car welding your exhaust yes sparks/slag fly.. fly to your rubber tire and BOUNCE off not stick.. so unless your tire was right under the splatter then i dont think it will burn a hole is it with out you hearing it then and there... take the tire off and air it up the use soap and water and investigate what really happend...

 

I highly doubt it was caused from spatter, unless it was directly under it like previously mentioned. even still its a stretch.

 

Picture sucks, I know.

 

looks like it could be from it. hard to tell from that far away

 

put it in soapy water clean it off then re post.... tell them to look at it.. if its splatter then it melted thru and is now inside dismount the tire and check for the splatter ball...

 

Welded a broken exhaust hanger back on with a flux core MIG on my CRX while it was on the ground and never had any problems with the tires. Sounds like foul play. Go higher up as stated above.

 

Did you have $300/ea tires or something? Looks like you have some pretty cheap $50 tires to me, so why complain about it this much? That little hole doesnt appear to be melted, no way it would go through without making a bigger hole then that and it would be very noticable, not a little pinhole.

 

pin hole size can be patch from the inside . find a tire shop that does patches from the inside. they will lay a patch over the hole and melt it in

 

Another vote for bad luck/timing. If a piece of hot slag that tiny could burn through a tire my arms and legs would be screwed by now.
About the only thing I could see that could possibly cause that is if he accidentally hit the tire with the mig gun with a hot piece of wire sticking out. I've done that to my leg and it stays damn hot for a good bit.

 

+1 again

 

I bet the worker put the MIG wire through the sidewall while it was still hot. That part of the tire is very thin but it's also not very subject to damage on the road. It's not from spatter. You could weld dirty, nasty painted steel 2" away from a tire and it wouldn't meld through if it was vertical.

Most places won't patch unless it's in the middle of the tread.

 

Flux mig weld will splatter **** everywhere. so YES