My '99 Grand Am has 4 All Season tires that go from the recommended 30psi down to 22ish PSI after about 7-12 days, requiring that I fill them up quite often. These P225/50R16 tires have been on these rims for about 6 years or so and have been leaking like this since I put them back on this past spring when I took off my snow tires. A few of them leaked the year before as well but not nearly as bad, and I have been putting up with filling up the tires with an air compressor often because of these leaks.
I took them off my car this weekend and put my snow tires on (dedicated rims, not using the same ones) so now that they were off I filled up a huge plastic bin full of water to see where exactly the air was leaking out from, and discovered it was leaking from between the tires and the rims all around both sides (I checked two of the four tires, both were doing the same) - see the attached images for details.
Now these tires have been on these rims for a good 6 years, so is it a simple matter of removing the tires from the rims, cleaning the rims/tires up, and then putting them back on? I'm guessing this isn't something that I can easily do (I'd imagine it's not as easy as it is changing tires on a pedal bike's rims lol...) so should I take it somewhere to do it (Canadian Tire? Eeeep...) and what would it cost to get them to do it? Would it definitely fix this problem if I brought it somewhere or is there a chance that it will still leak even after I get it done? These tires only have one summer left in them I think... so would I be better off just buying new tires instead of trying to repair them? I definitely want to keep on using these stock rims again once I do decide to buy new tires, so I'm hoping it is not the rims that are damaged or worn...
Would Slime tire sealant be another option? Would that fix it permanently? Or would that just make a mess that would have to be cleaned up a year from now, etc?
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
