Inner Tube Sealant - Does It Work? Slime vs. Muc Off - Preventing Flats On Your Bicycle

Does inner tube sealant work? As someone who works at a shop, I've always seen tube sealant as a bit of a gimmick, but I figured I'd test it out myself to see if it actually works.

This is one of those products that I think is hard for the everyday person to know if it actually works or not. You may put it in your tubes, but you'll never know if it worked.

In this video I'm sacrificing a few inner tubes in the great pursuit of knowledge.

I'm testing out two different products. Slime and Muc-Off Inner Tube Sealant.

As someone who owns and has worked in a bicycle shop for the better part of a decade, the few times I have encountered slime tubes, I've cussed up a storm. It gets everywhere, it's tough to clean, and didn't seem to save the tube, hence why it was brought to me to change the tube. It's an oil based product and is quite thick. I've heard second hand from other people that the slime sealant clogs up valves making it hard to air up the tube. I have no personal experience with it outside of that. Even though I had some personal animosity towards it, I still wanted to test it for what it's made for...filling punctures.

Muc-Off Inner Tube Sealant, is relatively new on the market. It was released around 2020. Muc-Off offers one of my favorite ''tubeless" sealants, and they have a great product range with lubricants and cleaners. I was very hopeful that if they put a product out with their name on it, that it would work, and it would work well.

In the video, I puncture the inner tubes with 4 different objects. A staple, a paper clip, a pen head, and a wood screw. These range in widths from half a millimeter to 5 millimeters.

Both sealants would ideally work a lot better in a tube inflated to proper pressure and also rolling. As you can see in the video, I have to shake the tube around a lot for the sealant to fill the hole. In a real life scenario, the sealant would be rolling around in the tube as the wheel is spinning, making it easier for the sealant to find and seal the hole. But for the sake of the experiment and to actually see what was going on. I over inflated the inner tube and tested it out.

Each tube was filled up with 100ml of sealant, which is the suggested amount for this tube size. The tubes were over inflated, and punctured.

While both products sealed up small holes with ease. Muc-Off proved to be the main one that would seal up larger holes. It is advertised to fill holes up to 4mm wide. With this test, it was able to seal a hole 5mm wide. I was able to test the tube the next morning to see if it actually sealed, and it did.

Slime was able to fill all of the holes but the screw hole, still very impressive.

I weighed an inner tube without sealant and with 100ml of sealant, as you can see in the video, the different was only 2oz. You'd be looking at an additional 4oz of weight if you had sealant in both wheels. This seems like a worthy sacrifice if the sealant does it's job and helps prevent flats.

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[guidodezwaan]

When i had a flat due to a nail I tried putting the regular muc off tire sealant in it and it actually worked. Just needed to ride it for a 10-20 minutes, as it did not fill the hole the first two days when i just set it in my garage and didn't drive it. Not sure why they made an extra product with 'inner' tube sealant, as the regular also works.

[AleksBiking]

Helpful video, Muc-Off can handle punctures up to 3-4 mm, so your test confirmed that. Also when the tire is rotating it will be easier to fill the puncture.

[psychoal]

I use sealant in the tube of one of my bikes and am sure it works most of the time i.e. you get small punctures that you don't notice you have as there is no loss of pressure. However the issue is with bigger holes which need patching, as the sealant can stop the patches sticking to the tube.

[mikegalvez]

i tried to seal my flat tire punctured ebike put sealant and when i start pumping air all the sealant liquid came all out nonstop & didnt seal anything

[HeAD-CRuMBs]

I agree with some of the others. You can't test the effectiveness of the product when it's not tested under normal use. It should be in the tire, on the bike, and under the recommended tire pressure but, that's not all. It should also be under the load weight of a person on the bike. One thing I know from experience is that punctures stretch and expand under a load weight then contract and shrink when the load weight is removed.

[riproaringblues]

Interesting test. I have used various tubeless sealants before but never an inner tube sealer. I can see the main issue is the very low pressure you are carrying out these checks with. At 45psi and higher it will eventually blow out many of your repairs.

[wegooutsidemtb]

Thanks for doing all this work it's very helpful. You earned a subscriber :). I was actually wondering if sealant in tubes actually worked. Was gonna try to go tubeless but it can be a bit messy and difficult. Going to try this first!

[MoonlitWood]

Curious if you've got thoughts between Muc Off and Flat Out. Obviously with Muc Off you have the inner tube sealant formula, and as far as I can tell Flat Out seems suggested more for tubeless tires?

[VanlifePhotographyGear]

I have to say doing some searching for the best to use, i think most people agree the Mucoff is best, but what about when you get the thorn in the tube it normally stays in the tire and will it not keep pucnturing the tube?

[ramborambokitchenkitchen]

It does work, the muc off stuff has been inside my fat tyre ebike inner tubes for the past 9 months, with 2k miles put onto it without getting a puncture. It was just thorns that were a problem in my area and with the 1-2mm holes those make, this stuff can seal it up easily.

[paulc]

Super review, thanks. Just ordered the muc off

[stevegosnell]

I'm just curious if you've done any more testing or follow-up with the Muc-off? I recently purchased a hunting ebike. It came with Maxxis Minion FBR 26x4 tires (with tubes). I'm considering using Muc-off. Any idea how much product each tube would need? Thanks.

[SmooveBee]

This is not the same as the tube being inside of a tire, flat-pressed to inside of tire; very much out-of-context sort of test, but we appreciate the effort.

[Emtbtoday]

Slime are good, and check out the latest 2 in 1, which is more for MTB use, being more liquid. Muc-Off is the one working for me at the moment. It patches up holes so much faster than Slime and can actually plug a bigger hole as it dries faster than Slime as well! I honestly don't like to say anything bad about Slime, as I used it all my teen days racing, etc., but it's toxic, and the only one to use now is the non-ammonia type, as it starts to react with the alloy on the inside of the rim and causes flaking of the alloy. After three years, my rims were destroyed inside! There is a non-ammonia type, but I'm scared to try it again just in case it destroys the inside of the rims again, so the muc off ones for me now water based latex in theory should be easy to wash off tubeless set up if their tubeless sealant has the same properties but might be different being its to seal a different rubber im not 100% on the tubeless one but for inner tubes muc offs the way to go just now!

[soupbums]

I just fill it with sand and jb weld guarantee you will never get a flat

[knocker]

Pointless experiment unless the tube in the tyre and at full pressure.

[josephreilman]

It amazes me all the bad reviews of these products when the genius buying it didn't bother to read the bottle. "My tubeless setup doesn't work! What a joke!" No, but your ability to read the description is though

[Vxanimal]

It's works but uses gravity and air to do the job.

[baitwaitfishing]

Nice test at low pressure on basically a condom. Never have I rode or drove any vehicle without a tire on the wheel.

[jameswilson]

In actual conditions wait at least 5 minutes and rotate the puncture to 6 o'clock. You'll get better results. 👍