I detailed my recent tire buying quest in this other thread.

As documented there, I bought 4 brand new Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 tires about a month ago.

All was well until this morning: my Fit's low tire pressure indicator went off while commuting to work.

After work, I stopped by a gas station to add air to my tires. Lo and behold, 3 of my tires had perfect (~31 PSI) pressure. But the 4th tire, my rear right tire, had very low pressure (~17 PSI). Visual inspection soon found the culprit: a screw punctured my tire. This was a first for me; never had a nail or screw damage a tire before.

First question: can this screw damage be effectively repaired, or is it hopeless and I must buy a new tire? Web searching indicates that it should be repairable, but I would love your insight.

Second question: can I safely drive my Fit to/from work, or the repair shop, with the screw still in it? Now that I know it is there, I am driving a lot slower and more cautiously than usual. The main danger that I am concerned about is if the tire would blow out, as that could be catastrophic while driving in certain situations.

Check out the photos below...

wait, where the heck is the attachment button?

The FAQ says that it should be here somewhere. But in the bottom left of my screen I see under Posting Rules this line: "You may not post attachments".

Anyone know how I can add an attachment? I have 2 great photos of the screw.

 

is the puncture on the side wall or the thread? if its the sidewall then the tire is no good. u can plug it if its in the thread for $10 at a tire place.

i ran for 2 months with a fat screw in my tire. always wondered why the one tire kept losing air and i just kept filling it. when i had time to do a visual inspection and turn the wheel i saw it. had it plugged and still running on the same tire now.

 

It is in the thread, but right at the end, near the sidewall.

A picture is worth a thousand words--any idea why this forum will not let me post attachments?

Out of desperation, I just tried creating an album on Imgur. I hope that you guys can see image0 and image1.

 

ive had plenty of cases of punctures..anywhere from pos all season factory tires to expensive summer tires on my hobby cars.

these days i usually just plug it from the outside given that the hole is small (nail/screw), and the puncture is at least an inch away from the sidewalls. my current DWS on my '12 has a plug i installed last winter... in 11F or something.

 

I have a local tire shop that swears that their plugs will work as long as the puncture is within tread area, and they don't even remove the tire but rather plug from the outside-in. They say that the only problems they see is when people drive the tire past the tread wear-bars. My son's Toyota has a plugged tire...no issues so far. The best option is to plug/patch the tire, which requires removal. If its too close to the outer tread area, most won't do the work. I would plug the tire, but I would also use the professional plugs which are more gooey and sticky.

 

I took my Fit to a repair shop that I trust, and they told me that the puncture was way too close to the sidewall to be repairable. They said that it should be at least 1 cm inside the "edge" (line where the tire stops making contact), which is well inside the tread area. As you can see from my photos (image0 and image1), the screw is actually at the very end of the tread.

So, I had to order a brand new Michelin...

 

Take it from a retired building contractor a plug works great in the tread. My teenage sons learned to do it themselves. They so hated to spend money on something other than gas.
Mark the wheel of the tire so you can keep up with which one it is after rotations. If it starts leaking you might try plugging it again once before replacing it.
Joni Mitchell has a song about dreaming about flat tires...

 

I'm sure the repair shop knows what they're talking about. It looked too close to the sidewall to be repaired to me. Sorry for your luck. I had the same thing happen with a driver bit and a brand new set of Kumho Ecsta PA31's about a year ago.

-Dustin