Flat tire on a Tesla in Austin

The single most expensive mistake is driving on it. A deflated tire on a 4,400 lb car destroys its own sidewall in well under a mile, and once the sidewall is gone a repair is off the table: a $75 patch becomes a tire, and on a 20 or 21 inch wheel that is a different order of number.

Usually, and by the same rule as any other tire: a puncture in the tread, no wider than a quarter inch, not overlapping another repair. Damage to the shoulder or the sidewall is not repairable on any car, and it is what most Tesla calls turn out to be, because a low-profile tire on a heavy car takes a kerb badly.

The Tesla-specific part is the foam. Most Tesla factory tires carry a strip of sound-deadening foam bonded to the inside of the tread, which is why the cabin is as quiet as it is. That foam sits exactly where a patch needs to go. It is not a problem for a proper repair: the tire comes off the rim, the foam is cut back around the hole, the liner is buffed and a combination patch and plug goes on. The tire loses a few square inches of foam and nothing else.

It is a problem for the other kind of repair. A string plug pushed in from outside, without taking the tire off the rim, cannot seat through the foam and cannot be inspected from the inside. Any shop that offers to plug a Tesla tire without dismounting it is guessing.

A Tesla is lifted at four marked points along the sill and nowhere else. Between those points is the battery pack, and a jack saddle placed on the pack can crack its casing. That is a repair bill no tire is worth, and it is the reason a proper Tesla tire call starts with jack pads: small pucks that locate in the lift point and keep the jack off everything around it.

If somebody arrives to change a Tesla tire without pads, that is the moment to ask. It is a twenty dollar accessory and it is the difference between a routine job and a very expensive afternoon.

The other number worth knowing is the torque. Tesla specifies 175 Nm, or 129 lb-ft, for the wheel lug nuts on Model 3, Y, S and X. That is set with a torque wrench, not with an impact gun and an opinion.

Two reasons, and both are just physics. A Model Y weighs about 4,400 lb against roughly 3,300 for a petrol crossover of the same footprint, and it delivers its full torque from a standstill rather than winding up to it. The tread does more work per mile and it wears accordingly.

Pressure matters more than usual for the same reason. The placard on a Model 3 or Model Y asks for around 42 psi cold, which is higher than most drivers expect, and running even a few psi under adds heat, wear and range loss at once. Austin summers make that worse: pressure rises with heat, so a tire set correctly in a hundred degree afternoon is under-inflated the next cold morning.

Tesla asks for rotation every 6,250 miles, or sooner if the tread depth differs by 2/32 inch between tires. On a staggered Model S or X, where the rear tires are wider than the fronts, they cannot be rotated front to back at all, which is worth knowing before a shop quotes you one tire and then explains you need two.

The labour is the same as any car. An inside patch repair starts at $75, a used tire at $100, a new one at $150, and there is no night, weekend or call-out surcharge on any of it.

The tire is where a Tesla costs more, and it costs more everywhere, not just here. A 19, 20 or 21 inch tire with an EV load rating is a more expensive tire than a 16 inch one, whoever fits it. The figure for your size is quoted on the phone before anyone drives, so it can be compared against a shop before the van moves.