Check your valves!

[shep1001]

Just took the car out to fill her up with Arab juice, (including a mini hoon just for the sake of it) for a weekend away tonight. As I pulled onto the drive I heard a loud bang followed by hissssss! Inspection of the OSF wheel showed the valve had ruptured completely and the end with the thread on it was missing . Looking at all the other valves closely they were all perished and starting to crack, they were only about 18 months old!


Local garage to me is sorting it now on all 4 wheels. Apparently repeated checking of pressures or anything that manipulates the valve will increase the wear rate, especially if you have short stubby valves.

Take 5 mins to have a look. This could have gone about 20 mins before during a spirited B road drive! The TVR gods were on my side today, this could have played out another way and I would be reporting the loss of my pride & joy!.


Shep

[aubrey9160]

Its not uncommon it happened to me on a bike at 100+ in Gerrards at Mallory luckily I low sided and slid but that was my championship gone.Takes 2 seconds to check when doing tyre pressures but nobody does it.

[Quentin1]

That is exctly the reason why I only would use metal valves on faster cars. They don´t cost that much more...

At higher speeds you often have the problem, that the valve might leak air, since the force working on the valve is higher than the spring inside can handle. A metal valve would not change its physical shape and is not affected.

(Apart from that there is a legal order in Germany to use metal valves, when the car has a capable top speed in excess of 124 mph.)

Björn.