Mobile tire repair: a technician comes to the car

A nail in the tread is a small job made expensive by where it has to happen. The usual answer is to drive on a doughnut to a shop, leave the car, and lose an afternoon. Mobile tire repair removes the driving and the waiting: a technician comes to the car, takes the tire off the wheel, inspects it from the inside, and repairs it there if it can be repaired.

This is a booked visit, not emergency roadside rescue. If you are stopped on a highway shoulder, call roadside assistance. If the car is on a driveway, in a workplace lot, or on a legal street spot and the tire is flat or losing air, this is the page.

What it costs

First tire	$145
Each additional tire in the same visit	$50
Call-out	none, it is in the price above

Those are our selling prices, set on 2026-09-20, and they include tax. They are not estimates that move once someone looks at the car.

If the tire turns out not to be repairable, the inspection time is charged and the repair work is not. Replacement is a separate decision that needs your approval and your price before anyone touches it. We would rather tell you a tire is finished than sell you a repair that will not hold.

What can actually be repaired

The rules are not ours. They come from the US Tire Manufacturers Association and are the same rules a good shop follows:

• The damage must be in the tread area. A puncture in the sidewall or the shoulder is not repairable at any price, by anyone.
• The hole must be no bigger than a quarter of an inch (about 6 mm). A nail or a screw qualifies. A gash does not.
• The tire has to come off the wheel so the inside can be inspected. A plug pushed in from outside without removing the tire is not a repair; it is a way of hiding one.
• The correct repair is a plug filling the hole and a patch sealing the inner liner, usually one combined unit.

Four things turn a repairable puncture into a replacement: driving on it flat, which chafes the tire apart internally within a few hundred yards; an existing repair too close to the new one; tread already near the end of its life; and, often, a run-flat. Nail in a tire: can it be repaired? walks through finding the damage before you book, and repair versus replace covers the decision when both are possible.

How the visit goes

1. You tell us the vehicle, where the car is, and what happened. A photo of the nail helps.
2. You get a price before anyone is dispatched.
3. The technician removes the wheel, demounts the tire, and inspects the inside.
4. Repairable: plug and patch, remount, rebalance, reset TPMS, back on the car.
5. Not repairable: you hear why, you see the tire, and you decide what happens next.

Rebalancing after a repair is included. Wheel repair, alignment and TPMS sensor replacement are not.

Before you book

• Do not pull the nail out. It is the only thing holding the air in. Leaving it makes the damage easier to find and the repair no harder.
• Do not drive on it flat. This is the single commonest way a $145 repair becomes a new tire.
• If the car has no spare, see a flat tire with no spare. If it is in the driveway, see a flat tire in the driveway. If it happened at the office, see a flat tire at work.
• Run-flats and EVs have their own limits: EV and run-flat tires.

Where we repair tires

Anywhere in the US. Put in your address and you get the same price and the same questions wherever you are.

Ten metros have their own page — Atlanta, Boise, Chattanooga, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh and Savannah — because that is where we have done the local research. See where we work, or, in Pittsburgh, mobile tire repair in Pittsburgh.

Outside those ten it is the same request and the same price; what changes is that we confirm we can cover your address before you pay rather than after. We would rather tell you no at that point than take money we cannot turn into a visit.

Questions people ask

• Is this the same as roadside assistance? No. Roadside assistance is dispatched to a car stopped where it stopped, often on a shoulder. This is a booked visit to a car parked somewhere safe. If you are on a highway, call roadside first.
• How long does it take? A single tire repair is a short job once the technician is there. The honest variable is travel, not the work.
• Can you repair a tire I bought somewhere else? Yes. Where the tire came from makes no difference to whether the damage is repairable.
• What if there are two nails? Two repairs in one tire are allowed only if they are far enough apart and neither overlaps an old one. The technician decides that with the tire off the wheel.
• Do you repair run-flats? Sometimes, under stricter conditions, and far less often than a standard tire. Tell us it is a run-flat when you book.
• Can you repair a tire on a truck or trailer? No. This is a passenger-vehicle service.
• Do you only work in those ten cities? No. Put in any US address and you get a price. The ten have their own pages because that is where we have done the local research.

Sources

• US Tire Manufacturers Association, tire repair basics (read 2026-09-17): tread-area-only rule, quarter-inch limit, demount-and-inspect requirement, plug-and-patch method.
• Michelin, tire damage guidance (read 2026-09-20): sidewall and shoulder damage, and damage from running a tire flat.