I was pulling out of the gas station when some bonehead cut in front of me. I swerved and my rear wheen hit the curb of the filling island. Needless to say I gave the careless motorist a good piece of my mind.

Only damamge was a small grazing to the edge of the rim (it looks kind of gnawed for an inch around the edge). Can this be smoothed out with something? Do I have to remove the tire to do so?

The more worrying part is that it took a chunk of rubber off of the tire. Damn Pirelli's are so soft. It is about 1.25" long, .5" high, and .33" deep. There was no warping of the rubber underneath the wound and there are no leaks as far as I can tell. I still have the bit of rubber that came off, how can I fix it back on? Is it safe do keep going with it like that?

Also, another thought, being a European car, it has a full size spare. Maybe in my laziness I could just swap the full-spare in the place of this one. I only have about 3000 miles on the car so tire wear should be minimal. I don't think I will ever use the spare for anything else. What do you think? Is this a bad idea?

Commments, suggestions please.

Regards,

--ian.

Why don't you open your trunk up; you might be surprised.

If there is no leak from your tire why not just keep driving it?

As for the rim scratches.. There is probably some touch up that could be done there. If you don't know how, take it to a good shop and they can do it

I'm not a tire expert, but if I had a gash in the side of my tire, I'd replace it pronto. Just because the tire isn't leaking doesn't mean that the sturctural integrity of the tire hasn't been compromised. For an expert opinion I'd go to a tire store and get their opinion.

Andy Hedin

You may be in for a blowout, which can be dangerous especially if it's a front tire.