What are they like to use?
There is only one way to test these products; puncture a tyre then repair it. The 180/55ZR17 rear tyre on our long-term Yamaha Tracer 700 was our test subject. We holed it using a nail then affected a repair with each product before a test ride with the repaired tyre, checking pressure before and after. Then Mark from Mobile Tyre Repairs took the tyre off to repair each professional, to give his impressions of each system.
Gear Gremlin
The repair process is straightforward; remove the nail; ream out the hole with the supplied tool; plug it with a worm and reinflate the tyre. It isn’t difficult but it does need a bit of force. Getting the worm into the threading tool was tricky — pliers helped here. And getting it through the tyre needed so much effort I nearly pushed the bike off its sidestand.
Eventually it went in and we trimmed the worm off and re-inflated the tyre using the CO2 system, which was also dead easy to use. We used all three canisters but they only registered 18psi in the tyre, so we topped it up to the recommended 36psi using a 12V compressor before the ride. I stuck to the recommended 40mph and did 10 miles over various roads with no noticeable effect on the way the bike rode. When I got back, the pressure had gone up by 2.5psi, with a temperature increase of 5°C but the repair held just fine.
Motul P3
After Mark had repaired the first hole professionally, we immediately punctured the tyre with the same nail ready to apply the Motul spray. We emptied the contents into the tyre and it soon began to expand out of the puncture hole (as well as the valve when we removed the connector) and sealed it. We checked the pressure, which was 20psi, so topped it up to 36psi again and went out for the same road ride — the instructions say go for a 10-20km ride immediately.
The ride quality seemed harsh and checking the tyre pressure after the ride, it had increased to 50psi, presumably as the product and gas expanded further. So it would have increased to roughly the right pressure when riding but you’d have to start riding at reduced pressure before it increased.
We wanted to see how the Motul product would cope with a larger hole, so Mark drilled a 5mm hole in the tyre and while the air escaped, the sealing foam did not, indicating it wasn’t able to seal that size of hole.
Once he had removed the tyre for replacement, it was clear the mess left behind is significant. Although Motul says the P3 product does not affect the latex in the tyre, some repairers report it can prove impossible to remove this type of product (though not specifically Motul) so a repair patch sticks properly.