Bonn, July 28, 2025. Sealed and silent tires are designed to protect drivers from breakdowns and reduce driving noise. However, these self-sealing or sound-damped tires are up to 20 percent more expensive to purchase than comparable standard tires. Sealed and silent tires can only be recycled to a limited extent at the end of their life cycle and require significantly greater effort. And the cost of repairing them in the event of a breakdown is significantly higher than for standard tires.
Sealed tires offer increased driving safety because the sealant on the inside of the tread surrounds and seals punctures. This allows you to continue driving immediately without having to change the tire or call breakdown service. A prompt inspection of the damage at a specialist workshop is recommended. However, the built-in puncture protection comes with a higher purchase price and entails additional economic and environmental costs.
Repairs to sealed and silent tires are generally permitted by law. As with any tire repair, the guidelines for the repair of pneumatic tires (StVZO § 36), the legal requirements for commercial repair operations, and the specifications of tire and repair material manufacturers must be observed.
However, repairing these tire types often requires increased effort and special measures for workshops. The sealant used in sealed tires makes damage detection more difficult. Assessing any structural damage caused by flat rolling is also often difficult for workshops. When repairing a silent tire in the tread area, the foam insert and any (residual) adhesive layer in the puncture area must also be removed to the required extent (up to approximately 5 mm beyond the edge of the repair patch). Standard tires, on the other hand, can usually be repaired just as quickly and cost-effectively, allowing the vehicle to continue driving.
Ecologically problematic: Compared to standard tires, sealed and silent tires can only be recycled to a limited extent and at significantly greater expense. The sealant or foam layer (which contains polyurethane, among other ingredients) must be removed before the actual recycling process, as it cannot be recycled like tire rubber and can clog the machinery.
The sealing compound or foam layer of sealed and silent tires is difficult for disposal companies to identify externally, which is why these tires require laborious manual sorting. The sealing compound can clog and contaminate the shredding tools in recycling plants. There's also an increased fire risk – sealed tires can spontaneously ignite in shredders if not identified in time.
According to estimates by the certified waste tire disposal companies (ZARE), sealed and silent tires already account for around 4% of the waste tire volume, and the trend is rising. This corresponds to approximately 2.400 tons annually, which can only be repaired with increased effort and recycled to a limited extent.
In addition, sealed and silent tires are almost exclusively found as original equipment on new cars – they play a virtually unimportant role in the replacement market. Their benefits therefore expire after a few years or around 40.000 kilometers – or at the first season change – a fact unknown to most drivers. Safety experts also criticize the fact that the apparent puncture-proofness causes drivers to pay less attention to the condition of their tires – with potentially life-threatening consequences.
Even the much-advertised noise reduction offered by silent tires offers little real added value – it merely compensates for the lack of sound insulation in the interior. The ZARE initiative therefore calls for manufacturers to clearly label sealed and silent tires. Drivers should carefully consider whether the safety gains truly outweigh the ecological and economic disadvantages.
You can find more information about certified waste tire disposal and our partners at: https://zertifizierte-altreifenentsorger.de
About the ZARE initiative
The ZARE initiative is an amalgamation of 18 companies organized in the Federal Association of Tire Trade and Vulcanizing Trades (BRV), 17 of which are certified waste management companies. The ZARE partners have set themselves the task of raising awareness of professional tire recycling in Germany. ZARE informs drivers about the environmentally friendly disposal of used tires. At 29 locations, the ZARE partners cover almost all of Germany and the Netherlands.
The partners of the initiative are:
Allgemeine Gummiwertstoff und Reifenhandels GmbH, Bender Reifen Recycling GmbH, Containertransporte Wesseler GmbH, CVS Reifen GmbH, Danninger OHG Spezialtransporte, Erwin Welzenbach Spedition GmbH, G & K Recycling Utsch GmbH, Hartung Speditions-, Handels- und Transport GmbH, HRV GmbH, KARGRO BV, KRAIBURG Austria GmbH & Co. KG, KURZ Karkassenhandel GmbH, Mondo Reifenmarkt GmbH, MRH Mülsener Rohstoff- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH, Reifen DRAWS GmbH, Reifen Külshammer, Reifengruppe Ruhr, REIFEN OKA – Reifenhandel
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Picture: high_disposal_costs_for_seal_and_silent_tires
Image caption: Sealed and silent tires are expensive, have limited repairability, and are worse for the environment than standard tires. Image source: KURZ Karkassenhandel GmbH.
Source: ZARE initiative
