Rusting Tire Rims

My 2003 PT Cruiser has slow air pressure leaks in both front tires. The
tires have only 10,000 miles of wear. The service department has told me
that the rims of the PT tend to corrode and the seals break and air does
seep out (a design flaw). Other than removing the tires and sanding the
rims periodically or buying better rims, is there any other way to resolve
this problem? Thanks.

 

Now I'm a little worried as mine is a 2003 PT Cruiser
My first thoughts if it happens to me would be to give one of those liquid
tyre sealants a try.
See below for an example or something similar.

http://www.tyreprotect.co.uk/puncture_prevention_products.html#hd

Bob

 

Apparently certain wheels for certain year Chryslers are bad for this
problem. It used to be discussed frequently on the 300M Club forums -
not much any more because I think they beat the topic to death. My guess
is it's been discussed on PT and other forums as well.

Here are some ideas that I got from reading those discussions:
Some people use Fix-a-Flat. Some possible/claimed downsides of that
are: It can be a mess for a tire shop to deal with later, it can cause
imbalance (some people said that isn't true, others said it is true), it
will mess up tire pressure sensors (not sure if that is true either) if
you have those.

You can use RTV sealer on the bead when re-mounting the tires (after
sanding or thoroughly wire-brushing) - that seems to be the favored way
because you would have none of the claimed issues that you would have
with fix-a-flat.

As future preventative, you could only inflate with dry nitrogen, or
known-dry compressed air.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

The following solved the chronic flat spare tire for one of my cars Years
later, it is still at the pressure I left it at:
Remove the tires from the rims, glass-bead (aluminum or steel rims) or
sandblast (steel rims only) the rims in the area where the tires seat on the
rims. Prime and paint the seat areas on the rims with gloss enamel paint.
It doesn't matter what color -- clear will work as well as paint with
pigment in it. Allow the paint to dry thoroughly. I applied several coats
of paint. Warming the rims prior to painting speeds-up the drying time.
Remount tires.

Bryan

 

.....thanks you guys. My first reaction is to sand and use the RTV sealer.
Perhaps I'll keep my eyes open for rims that would not deteriorate if I
still have a problem after using the RTV sealer.

 

If you must use sandpaper, you should use the finest grit that will get the
job done -- you don't want deep scratches into the rim. And if you must use
RTV, you should use the non-corrosive variety (contains no acetic acid),
such as Dow-Corning 4350, etc.

Otherwise, if you don't have a sandblaster, you can usually find someone to
do it for you cheaply. Rattle-cans of enamel paint are dirt cheap too.
This was the method recommended to me by a tire shop.

Bryan