On a recent trip to NYC, my one-month-old Mazda3 had a flat at 70 mph on the left rear tire. Turned out that the culprit was a very large finishing nail right in the centre rib of the contact patch. I drove the last 80 km to NYC on the space saver donut and the following day went to a certain tire repair shop with the tire and rim on the recommendation of a yellow cab driver. It was literally a hole-in-the-wall shop on the lower west side and they determined that they had to replace the tire (it was leaking from the damaged sidewall too!) instead of simply plugging/patching it. Guess what kind of cheap black rubber they 1st offered me before I went with a Falken brand tire? You guessed it. HERCULES.
I guess it didn't matter too much what I put on since I was intent on just buying something that would get me the 700 km back to home base where I would then replace the tire (again) with an OEM Yokohama (still crap, but at least the same) tire, but it sure made me smile. My wife must've noticed the grin on my face because I had to explain the hole "smooth, no bump ride" schtick to her.
