Tubes in Tires - First You saw them, Now You Don't!

So we were reminiscing about the wonderful times spent by the road side in the old days each time we'd have a flat tire. Nyah!! It was wonderful only for the kids who'd anyways be enjoying much more when in-motion and maybe for the tire repair guy who'd welcome the business.

For the rest of those involved, from the driver/person responsible for the tire change to the elders who had to step out of their comfort zone into the heat; it was more of a torturous task than anything. Not to mention, the ignominy of having the rest of the world pass by leaving you red-faced in your misfortune.

Speaking of tire-repair guys - some unscrupulous chaps have even been known to have nails or sharp metal shavings around popular parking spots along the nations highways.

This deflating scenario began to subside when a new development began sweeping across the country. As the first wave of Tube-less tires began appearing on various vehicles across the country, tongues began to wag.

Those brave souls who went on to adopt this new-for-Indian roads development were often ridiculed for having invested in a 'useless' technology.

Things like, for Indian roads, we need tubes, the regular tires are harder so more durable, the suspension of Indian cars won't work with these 'fancy' tubeless tires and so on.

In-fact, I still remember someone in the family being told by one of the so-called tire 'experts' of those times to keep a spare tube in the car just so that it could be inserted in the tubeless tire and the car could be brought to the garage for repairs.

And what is the state-of-affairs today?

almost all cars, from the humble Tata Nano to the mighty S-Class all come with tubeless tires as standard.

So now, you, the reader must be wondering.

Did the tire-companies or the tire manufacturers cast a spell on the Indian population? For, the road network may have improved but the road surfaces leave a lot to be desired.

Just a short drive around the major arterial roads of our wonderful city will probably have a few nodding in agreement that the lunar-scape must be similarly paved.

So what then really changed ???

The answers lie in the terms 'Perception' and 'Pricing'.

The Roads improved just a bit. But the single most thing that made a huge impact on the perceptions of tubeless tires was the narrowing down of the price-difference between the tubed and the tubeless type variants to a negligible amount.

This move coincided with a push from the tire manufacturers in educating the people, both customers as well as the tire repair guys, in the benefits over the old technology.

Once the price-conscious Indian market realized that the newer tubeless tires were now available at a more wallet-friendly price, they began to warm up to them. The Auto Manufacturers matched these efforts with their own and began offering tubeless tires as OEM options.

So, what began as a slow attempt, gradually picked up pace. Today it is only the hard-to-convince customers in the B-towns who would insist on using tube-type tires.

While all this was happening on our side of the planet, some rather unfortunate series of incidents led to some expensive lawsuits that led to a rash of developments which would change the tire-world again.

In the next post, we shall have a look at some of these developments and see how they could impact our part of the world.