Electric Scooter Flats: Repair and Protect with Slime

Electric scooter flats are the most common type of repair needed for electric scooters, according to our survey data.

Whether you have inner tube or tubeless tires , tire slime is one of the best ways to prevent flat tires. For tubeless tires, make sure you buy tire slime designed for tubeless tires (though most scooters have inner tube tires).

What we like about this tire sealant is that it is cheap, easy, and fast.  The procedure to install the tire slime is the same on all electric scooters.

Tire slime or tire sealant is an inexpensive and often brightly-colored mixture of glue, binders, and synthetic fibers that are injected into your electric scooter's tire. When the tire spins around, the electric scooter slime will coat the inside wall of tire. If a sharp object punctures your tire, the air pressure will force the tire slime out of the tire and into the puncture.  Once the slime has filled the puncture and contacted outside air, the slime will cure through the process of polymerization, sealing the hole.

The tire slime will also work to fix electric scooter flat tires that have already developed. In this case, the tire is injected with tire slime and manually rotated to coated the inside of the tire. The tire is then reinflated with a pump.  Pressure from the pump will force the slime into the puncture where it will polymerize and seal the tire.

Note: tire slime will not repair large tears or punctures.

1. Buy slime for your tires (we like this brand because they include a valve stem remover)

2. Use the provided tool to remove the valve stem

3. Connect up the provided hose and slime away (add 4 oz, 118 mL of slime per tire)

4. Reinstall the valve stem

5. Re-inflate the tire

Pneumatic tires have huge benefits compared to solid tires, however they require a little extra care to prevent flats. You can read about the benefits of pneumatic tires in our tire guide.

Slime is one of the easiest ways to prevent flat tires and is quite effective. For more ways, check out our guide to preventing flat tires.

To find electric scooters with pneumatic tires (or with airless solid ones), try our electric scooter comparison list. It lets you sort and filter electric scooters by specifications like tire type.