Substandard Tire Valve Stems ?

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lukey

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May 9, 2004
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Delaware USA
Ok I had 2 tires on my 04 Accord develop leaky tire valve stems (the rubber part)which I had replaced. As I would drive the tire valve would bend over from centrifugal force of course and then slowly leak air resulting in low tire pressure. This occurred over a few day period I think on a cold spell here in Delaware. I never heard of this happening in my 40 + years of driving and working on cars. The car and tires are only 3 years old with 28000 miles on the vehicle. Has anyone heard of these valve stems going bad so early in their life? Is the problem substandard rubber? If the stem was slightly pushed to the outside (as from centrifugal force) it would hiss air.
Its got me puzzled for sure.
Thanks in advance

Lukey
dunno.gif
 
Well after doing some internet research I found out there's actually a federal investigation going on in the last 2 years!

Watch those tires!

Lukey
 
Wonderful. Discount Tire used some HUGELY long valve stems with my new tires; I actually like the long ones because they're easier to work with, but if the centrifugal force messes them up, I'm gonna be p-oed.
 
Quote:

Many newer valve stems on the market are made in China, for what it's worth.

Click to expand...


Is that so? Then I'm not surprised all my car and bike tires leak more air now than they did 10 years ago.
 
They make 6 million pieces a month? Surely they can lower the quality and increase production to satisfy increasing demand.
 
Like to see a picture of a stem built in the past 10 years with "made in America" stamped on it! All I've seen in years are made in china.

In 1970 my fathers service station used NAPA stems (made in USA 'till approx 1980 now they're china also). They cost .30 ea. in 10 packs. Now I'm purchasing Chinese for 0.128 in 500 packs. Install new stems with EVERY new tire. Never a problem.
 
Lukey, You still living in CM??? As you can see, I moved out.

Anyway, were they the OE Honda stems?

Ive not had any issues with stems on any replacement tires, all are the shortest available... are yours the longer variety?

Ive gotten gator brand (IIRC), stems put on from one tire shop, they claim to be made in Germany.

J's tires on Kirkwood highway north (east??? towards wilmington anyway) does great service, and is where I always had Tire rack drop ship and service my tires.

JMH
 
Yup I'm still at CM....turns out there's 3 bad stems on my
04 Accord. Had them replaced at Els Tire in Glasgow on Rt 40. They are the original and only 3 years old. I'm gonna
have the 4th one replaced of course. I will only get the short stems as the long ones I think flop around too much.
There's still the possibility my tire stems were tampered with by someone but I dont think so. After reading on the
internet about the Federal investigation into substandard tire stems I think Honda may have gotten hold of a batch of them.

Lukey
 
BTW, on the website with the link a few posts above,
it has a material listed as Natural Rubber OR EPDM.

The reading I have done on the internet says that natural rubber valve stems can actually fail after only 2 YEARS !

What you want is the EPDM material which is a synthetic rubber according to what I've read.

Lukey
 
I had a valve stem go bad right after I filled the tires with air. Next day one tire looked real low and checked for nails, glass. Ended up the valve stem was leaking and had to replace. I think most valve stems manufactured these days are pretty much a crapshoot.
 
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