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I guess everyone has different policies but one time i was shopping at Sams and when i came out one of the tires on my old truck was halfway flat with a screw about in the same spot. They refused to patch or plug it, saying it was too close to the sidewall and i had to buy a new tire.
Patches are sometimes trickier because they flex with the tire, so you need a bit more room away from the sidewall. From the looks of your pic, I see no reason why it couldn't be plugged.
crazy...a store that sells tires refusing to patch a hole, instead saying your only option is to...buy a tire
Some people do take it too far, but the main reason they do that is because it's a safety issue. I had to go through a Michelin tire repair course and there is a lot more to properly fixing a tire than just poking a plug through. There are multiple cases of people having a blowout and suing a tire repairer for millions of dollars because of an improper repair. When you fix the tire, you're not only fixing the hole in the tread, but you're fixing the inner liner and most importantly the steel belt package. If you don't fix the belts properly, they can cause tread seperation. It's a safety issue more than anything. The sidewall belts and tread belts overlap in roughly the outer 1.5" of the tire, and you cannot safely repair the sidewall belts, so any puncture in that overlap area is not safely repairable.
As far as making money, yes, they do make more money off of selling you a tire, but it's a matter of usually $35 profit on the tire versus $15-20 for the repair, minus the roughly $1 the plug patch costs. Not all mechanics are ******** looking to rip you over.
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