this may be an insanely stupid question, even better that its my first post.


i recently noticed that my regular old rubber valve stems have cracks in them, and im afraid theyre going to, or already are leaking.

im interested in starting autox, or road racing (the course at englishtown.) so id like to get everything in tip top shape.


i found an old thread here mentioning these types of valves:
http://www.jegs.com/i/Mr.%20Gasket/720/1957/10002/-1

are these appropriate for street use? are they overkill? are there any down sides compared to regular all rubber valves?

thanks in advance.

Stick with short rubber valve stems - they will bend out of the way if hit by debris. A tire shop should be able to replace them, maybe without completely dismounting the tires. SOP is new stems with new tires.

I tried the flush pieces, and found them impractical for a race car that gets pressure checked many times per day - adapter was awkward to use, and leaked when checking pressure.

You'll have dismount the tires to mount either. The rubber *could* be done by breaking the bead if the tire person has super small hands.

There's nothing wrong with normal rubber stems. I've never seen them crack before though.

I've seen the rubber valve stems crack. That is normal for California, especially in the smog zones!

I just walked past my car trailer, and sure enough - one of the tires is flat. The valve stem is cracked, and half torn off. Grrr...

A.

Some days are like that!

Possibly not related, but we recently received a letter from Discount Tire about a run of valve stems that they had used that appear to be cracking, leaking, and failing prematurely. We were urged to come by and have the stems checked. Last time I went by, they checked their records online, and only two of our cars had had new tires during the time span in question, neither apparently had the valve stems in question. Just a datapoint. If DT had a bad run, perhaps other tire resellers bought the same run of stems from the same vendor. You may want to double-check your valve stems.

that is correct. they mentioned the recall wasnt limited to DT but that lots of other tire dealers were not sending out recalls. just replace them. use rubber like Alan said. i cant tell you the number of times i've seen a cone or other cars tire snap the metal off.

Wow. Must say I'm surpised at the responses - keep in mind I'm still new to all this. However, I recently had a rubber valve stem fail on me right in the middle of turn 12. Left front tire too. The valve had failed right at the wheel. Since steel ones wouldn't have this problem, I thought they would be the way to go.

Anything can fail. If a metal valve stem is hit by something it can snap off. A rubber one generally won't break. Easiest and cheapest to just keep good rubber valve stems on the car.