Around one year back, I need to replace the tires of my santro vehicles. I had to make couple of choices at that time. Specifically – 1) Workshop 2) tires

I narrowed on bridge-stone tires – and did not evaluate other brands for this. I looked through the bridge-stone workshops through their website, and got quote from 3-4 workshops. Hyundai workshops charge comparatively higher with no discounts for such things and bridge-tone select workshops are better for such work. Different bridge-stone workshops gave different level of discount on the MRP of the tires. Fixing etc is free of cost – as far as I can remember(afair).

I found that banjara hills rd. no 12 workshop gave reasonable quote with 10-15% discount for all four tires. so, I decided to go there on a Sunday morning to get the work done.

I also went through the choice of tube and tubeless tires. Tubeless tires were favored by workshops; Now-a-days, most new cars come with tubeless tires e.g. i10; I came to know that tubeless tires do not deflate immediately after puncture and give some time to reach home or workshop; cost wise both came for almost the same cost. I decided to use tubeless tires.

Workshop did the work in about 45 minutes. I had a choice to load the tires with N2(nitrogen) or air. Workshop manager supported saying N2 saying reduced maintenance – with N2, air pressure need to be checked only once in a month. It can give better mileage. but I was not sure how many petrol pumps give N2 in my locality. I know most of the bunks give air. Hence, I opted to stay with air. That is it. I was up and running with the four new tires for the car.

Since then – it is over a year. During the year – one day boy filling air – at petrol bunk near cyber gate – convinced me to fill N2 at cost of INR 40/- and suggested to check pressure every month with INR 20/-. Seeing that it will reduce weekly maintenance of checking air pressure – I decided to deflate and fill it with N2 that day. It has been over 6 months. – monthly once check – has sufficed. Only hitch here is that I could find only the bunk near cyber gateway, keeping the N2 machine in working condition. Other bunks do not have N2 or there N2 machine is not working often. That may be case in other localities. Having a bunk with N2 in locality is key. Otherwise – N2 has been good for tires and me – it reduced the weekly one visit to monthly one visit.

I also got a tire puncture once. Tire deflated over night in my parking. I took the car to a bridge stone workshop nearby that fixed it in few minutes. Note – local road side tire fixers will likely not have a fix for this. but I have not checked also.

Recently – I faced a major issue. One tire rim seem to have bent – at least that is what each workshop person is telling as the issue. Tire deflates once in a week – It has been a nightmare. With rim having minor issues – tube tires don’t deflate but tubeless tires seems to deflate very often because of air leak. Today – I plan to get the rim replaced and keep the finger crossed to see if that fixes the problem.

In summary – the above has been biggest trouble with tubeless tire. I saw only 1 (afair) puncture during last year; that has been good experience; tube tires faced more punctures in a year. but for the recent issue – I have paid enough visits to workshop. All in all – tubeless tires seem to gone well for me as long as the vehicle rims was not impacted.

I will keep updated on how that goes. How has been your experience with tubeless tires – low on maintenance?