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Tell us your tyre size and where you are — we quote before we set off.
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Mobile Tyre Fitting in Bideford
Bideford, Northam and the Torridge — 24 hours a day.
Maximum 60 minute response. We have drivers across England and Wales, so a call gets a fitter to the vehicle rather than you moving a car that is not safe to move. Call 07989 606060 with your tyre size and location.
Bideford is an old port on the Torridge, built steeply up from a quay, with a medieval bridge of twenty-four arches at the bottom and the A39 crossing on a modern one downstream.
Roads and places we get called to around Bideford
- The A39 Atlantic Highway and the Torridge Bridge.
- The A386 south towards Great Torrington and Okehampton.
- The Long Bridge and the quay.
- Northam, Appledore and Westward Ho!
- The steep streets rising from the quay — High Street, Bridgeland Street and the lanes off them.
The Long Bridge
The old bridge is narrow, arched and carries a single lane of traffic under signals, with the arches themselves being different widths because it was built in stages over centuries. Nothing about it accommodates a stopped vehicle.
If something goes on the bridge, keep going to the far side if the wheel will take you. Stopping on it blocks the crossing entirely and the alternative is a long way round via the A39 bridge.
The hill
The town rises sharply from the quay, and the streets above it are narrow, steep and lined with parked cars. Bridgeland Street and the lanes off the High Street have gradients steep enough that a jack is genuinely the wrong tool in the wrong place.
The quay and the car parks alongside it are level and open and are almost always the better meeting point. Tell us whether the car will get down there.
The estuary
The Torridge and the Taw meet just downstream, and the whole area around Appledore and Northam is tidal, with mud that is deep and water that comes in quickly. The Burrows at Northam is sand and shingle rather than road, and driving onto it is a decision people regret.
Salt is everywhere here. Wheels corrode where the tyre seats against the rim, and a slow leak with nothing in the tread is more often that than a puncture in this town.
Appledore's shipyard and the marine trades put stainless offcuts, wire and swarf onto the roads around them, which is a different hazard from an ordinary nail — harder, sharper, and it leaves very little mark.
We also cover Barnstaple across the estuary and Bude down the A39.
What we can do in Bideford
- Mobile tyre fitting — supply and fit a replacement at your home, workplace or the roadside, including balancing and disposal of the old casing.
- Mobile puncture repair — where the damage is inside the repairable area of the tread, a repair is cheaper and quicker than replacement.
- Commercial tyre fitting — vans, minibuses and other light commercial vehicles.
Stuck in Bideford right now? Call 07989 606060 and we will tell you what we can do and what it will cost before we set off.
Before we arrive
- Find your locking wheel nut key. Without it the wheel cannot come off. It is usually in the glovebox, the boot well, or with the spare.
- Read your tyre size off the sidewall, for example 205/55 R16 91V, so we arrive with the right tyre rather than making a second trip.
- If you are on a motorway or dual carriageway, get as far left as you can or into a refuge, then everyone out through the passenger doors, over the barrier and well back from the carriageway — not in the car. Ring with the junction number and your direction of travel.
- Describe where you are, not just your postcode. A junction number, a bay number, a farm, a pub or a bridge puts us on the spot far faster — rural postcodes can cover a mile of near-identical lane. We bring our own lighting, so darkness is not a problem.
More detail in our guides on what to do with a flat tyre on the motorway and checking your tread depth.
Repair or replace
Whether a tyre can be repaired is decided by where the damage is, not by how big the hole looks. Damage inside the central three-quarters of the tread, up to 6mm across, is repairable under BS AU 159. Damage in the shoulder or the sidewall is not, at any size — there is no way to reinforce a sidewall that flexes on every revolution.
The other thing that rules out a repair is having driven on the tyre flat. A short distance is enough: the sidewall folds under the rim and the internal cords break. That often does not deflate the tyre at the time — it shows up days later as a soft rounded bulge, and a tyre in that condition has to be replaced whatever the original puncture looked like.
How the damage was made matters as much as where it is. A nail or a screw pierces, leaving a neat hole that is usually well within the limit. Flint, crushed stone, quarry aggregate and dropped stainless fixings cut instead — a gouge or a tear rather than a puncture — and a cut frequently exceeds the repairable size even when it lands squarely in the middle of the tread. That is why we take the tyre off and look inside before telling you either way, rather than judging it from the outside.
Impact damage behaves the same way. A pothole or a kerb taken at speed compresses the suspension fully and pinches the sidewall between the rim and the obstacle. If that has happened, check both tyres on that side — the rear takes the same hit a fraction of a second after the front — and look for a bulge rather than for a hole.
We carry both outcomes to every job, so a repair that turns out not to be safe does not become a second visit.
Age and wear
Tread depth is not the only thing that retires a tyre. Rubber hardens as it ages whatever the mileage, which is why a caravan, motorhome, trailer or second car can carry almost full tread on a casing that is well past useful life. The four-digit date code on the sidewall gives the week and year it was made — our guide on how long tyres last covers where the line falls.
Depth matters most in standing water. The legal minimum is 1.6mm across the central three-quarters, but a tyre's ability to clear water falls off well above that — by about 3mm you are losing it noticeably, and aquaplaning starts at lower speeds than most drivers expect. Our tread depth guide covers checking it with a 20p coin in about a minute.
Wear patterns are worth reading too. Both outer shoulders going before the middle usually means underinflation, or a lot of cornering and hill descent; one edge alone is more often alignment. We will tell you which it looks like when we are there — see uneven tyre wear for the full picture.
Vans and light commercials
A van needs a tyre carrying the C marking and the correct load index. That is not interchangeable with a passenger tyre of the same nominal size, whatever may have been fitted before — the casing is built to carry more, and a loaded van on passenger-rated tyres is running outside the rating.
Tell us whether the van is loaded when you ring, and we will bring the right fitment first time. Details of what we carry are on the commercial tyres page.
How the repair is done
The wheel comes off, the tyre comes off the rim, and the inside of the casing is inspected before anything else happens. The puncture is then repaired from within using a combined plug and patch, and the wheel is balanced before it goes back on.
That inspection is the part that matters. An external plug pushed into the tread without removing the tyre is a get-you-home measure: it can seal the hole while leaving damage inside the casing entirely undetected, and that damage is what causes tyres to fail later at speed. It is the same job a garage does, done where the vehicle already is.
A slow leak with no puncture to find
A tyre that loses air over days with nothing in the tread has usually failed at the seal rather than the surface — a corroded alloy bead seat, or a perished valve stem. Neither can be found with the tyre still on the rim, and neither is fixed by topping the pressure up.
It typically announces itself on the first cold morning of the year. Cold air contracts, dropping the pressure a few PSI, and a leak that was tolerable through mild weather is a visibly flat tyre by the time you come out to the car. The fix is the tyre off the rim, the sealing face cleaned back to sound metal, and a new valve.
Working conditions around Bideford
Salt. Sea air corrodes far harder than road salt does, and it works on the parts of a wheel you cannot see. Pitted alloy bead seats and corroded valve stems are the standard coastal fault, and they present as a slow leak with no puncture anywhere in the tread. Vehicles parked near the front year round get it worst.
Gradients. A sustained climb builds heat in the casing, and heat finds whatever weakness is already there — which is why underinflated or previously damaged tyres are the ones that let go on a long pull rather than on the flat. On a steep slope we will ask to move onto level ground before jacking: a handbrake holds two wheels, and that margin drops sharply the moment one of them comes off the ground.
Narrow and historic streets. Older centres combine tight streets, limited parking and setted or cobbled surfaces. A jack needs a flat, firm, continuous base and setts rock under load, so we will usually ask to move a few yards onto smooth tarmac. If there is not a car's width beside the wheel, tell us when you ring and we will sort out where to meet instead of finding out on arrival.
Common questions in Bideford
- I have stopped on the Long Bridge.
- Get to the far side if the wheel will carry you. It is single lane under signals and stopping blocks the crossing completely.
- Can you work on the streets above the quay?
- Often not safely. They are steep and parked both sides — the quay car parks are level and a much better place to meet.
- Slow leak and nothing in the tread.
- In a salt-air town that is usually corrosion where the tyre seats on the rim. We clean the seat back to metal and reseat it.
- Can I drive onto Northam Burrows?
- We would not. It is sand and shingle with tidal mud beyond, and getting off it is harder than getting on.
- Do you cover Northam, Appledore and Westward Ho!?
- Yes, across EX39.
Not in Bideford?
We cover the rest of Devon and beyond. If you are closer to one of these, the same service and the same number applies:
- Mobile tyre fitting in Barnstaple
- Mobile tyre fitting in Brixham
- Mobile tyre fitting in Dawlish
- Mobile tyre fitting in Exeter
- Mobile tyre fitting in Exmouth
- Mobile tyre fitting in Honiton
- Mobile tyre fitting in Ivybridge
- Mobile tyre fitting in Newton Abbot
- Mobile tyre fitting in Paignton
- Mobile tyre fitting in Plymouth
- Mobile tyre fitting in Tavistock
- Mobile tyre fitting in Teignmouth
Why use a mobile fitter?
You do not have to move a vehicle that is not safe to move. No limping to a garage on a space-saver, no waiting room, and no second trip to collect the car.
We bring the same equipment a garage would use, wheel balancing included, to wherever the vehicle already is.
Tyre brands we supply
We stock across three tiers so you can balance cost against tread life and wet-weather performance. If you tell us your budget, we will say honestly which tier makes sense for the mileage you do.
Budget and mid-range
- Farroad
- Hifly
- Churchill
- RoadX
- Infinity
Premium
- Michelin
- Pirelli
- Bridgestone
- Goodyear
- Continental
Need a brand that is not listed? Call us and we will check availability for your size, or search by your tyre size to see what we can fit.
