Tire leaking.

After we finished the conversion on the "94 Chevy Dually with the Cummins motor, I put a set of 6 commercial duty 10 ply "Thunderers" under it. Got all six for $630 total on Amazon, free shipping. I have been very happy with their ride and wear. However, about 6 months after installing them, the left front tire began leaking, and still does. If I pump it up to 73#, in 24 hrs. it will be down to 45#, but won't go much if any lower than that until I pump it back up again. I have wasted a half gallon of a strong detergent solution looking for a bubble but to no avail. I took it to a tire shop and had them put it into their water bath and even after spending a good 15 minutes looking for a bubble, none appeared. They guessed that maybe the valve stem might be leaking intermittently so they installed a new one but it made no difference. I am perplexed. Anybody got any ideas?
 

Sounds like the bead is leaking, have a GOOD tire shop dismount the tire from the rim and clean both rim and tire bead, remount using a good quality bead sealer. Those aluminum rims are noted for bead leaks.
 
Mix some dish soap with water in a fairly stout solution. Spray the side walls and beads let set over night. You will need to remove the wheel from the vehicle for this or at least it works better that way. The leak will look like shaving cream on the leak. The foam will be real fine. Also look closely at the stem for leaks or the core. When I have leaks the first thing I look at is the core then stem then beads and side walls.
 
Go back to the tire shop and get or take a kid with good eyes to look for bubbles. Local shop found a leak in wife's Explorer that took 2 months to turn low tire light on. There was just one or two bubbles every minute. I had took it off at home and put in horse trough, I couldn't see a thing. Also tried dawn.
 
Take the rim off of the truck and lay it flat on the ground. spray a soapy solution of dish soap so it pools around the bead/rim area all around the tire and let it sit. Come back 15 minutes later. If no bubbles appear, flip it over and repeat. It's probably a bead leak as stated. If you find one mark the spot with tire chalk both the tire and rim. As ramblineagle stated, it is pretty common.
 
My similar experience was on a 2004 Crown Vic that turned out to have TWO steel wheels that had rusted through on the inside weld bead.
 
I appreciate everybody's response. I'm going back to the tire shop. This time, unlike the first time, I'm going to have them put 80# of pressure in
the tire before it's put into the water. Should have done that the first time, because when it gets down to 45# it stops leaking..
 
The outside aluminum wheels on dads dually leak and they always have nothing we?ve tried works i think I?m going to slime them
 
SLow leaks esp drive me crazy.. i had one on my flatbed trailer..I put a hose on it slow ...nothing...I brought it to work where we have an old bathtub filled that with water..NOTHING..until i happen to jiggle the valve stim..BINGO..
 
I have seen Green Slime perform miracles but not this time, not yet anyway. I put 12 pumps in that tire. Still leaks as of yesterday. You can't put too much slime in an automobile tire. If you do you will unbalance it. Rides rough afterwards.
 
I haven't done that simply because there were no bubbles coming from the bead or from anywhere else. However, yesterday I put 84# of pressure in that tire. This morning there was still 84# in it. I don't understand, unless the bead had not fully seated yet at the original pressure of 65#, but if that is the case, why were there no bubbles coming from the bead?
 
Had similar situation on my '02 f250 two wheel drive on set of new Michelins bought from Sam's around 2014. We ended up repositioning tire on wheel and leak went away. I have aluminum/alloy wheels too.
 
My wheels are steel. A couple of days ago I put 83# of pressure in that tire. Hasn't leaked since. Apparently the bead had somehow become unseated somewhere, although it could also be that the 12 pumps of Green Slime I put in it finally found the hole. I don't know, but for the time being at least the problem is solved. I once bought a tractor from the mesquite area of Texas. The previous owner had spent a good many hours bushhogging mesquite. He had filled the front tires with foam so they didn't leak, but each of the back tires had about a million thorns in it, and that is no exaggeration. The tire shop said it was hopeless because if they spent several hours with a small side grinder,cutting off all the thorns inside, the barbs would continue to migrate the thorns inward and puncture a new tube. So I put an entire gallon of Green Slime into each tire, aired up the tires, jacked the tractor off the shop floor, and spun the tires for several minutes. About a million tiny green drops appeared on the outside of each tire. They never again leaked. Made a believer out of me.
 
There might be or could have been a few grains of sand in one area of the bead.
Would not leak when off the truck and in a tank.
Would not leak when on the truck either.
Until parked with the tire valve up, down, left or right, etc.
Then it would leak down until it got to the "sweet spot" of psi and stop leaking.

Been there, done that.
 
Still don't know what the problem was, but apparently had something to do with the bead not seating. Ever since I put 84# of air in it, it has not
leaked.
 
Had a tire on a pickup one time with slow leak. Turned out to be a little plastic scan tag stuck on the bead that was not removed when tire was mounted
 
Thanks. I'll check the bead when I next remove the tire from the rim. But it seems like there would be bubbles coming from the bead if it was leaking from there.
 
As long as I keep 80# of pressure in the tire it doesn't leak down. On the contrary to your response, I have had excellent results almost all the time from using green slime. My most memorable experience with it was concerning a tractor I bought from the mesquite country of Texas. The back tires each had thousands of thorns sticking through the tubeless tires. The air would leak out in just a few hours. I put a gallon of green slime into each tire and then aired them up and spun the tires for a few minutes while the tractor was jacked up off the ground. The result was thousands of tiny green wet dots appearing all over each tire. Neither tire ever leaked again.
 

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