GlueTread
Patented external sidewall tire repair kits, assembled in Hiram, Ohio from components the company locates state by state.
🇺🇸 Made in USA
Our assessment
Company details
Where GlueTread products are made
GlueTread keeps a page headed “American Manufacturing” that answers “Where do our kit contents come from?” state by state. T-handles are “CNC machined out of USA-Made aluminum in Belgrade, Montana”; plugs are “manufactured and assembled in Texas”; the rubber patches “come from the same great state of Ohio that produces the recognizable USA-made Goodyear and Cooper tires”; the Colby valve stems are “machined in Missouri with the final assembly happening in Rogers, Arkansas.”
“Today, our team of friends and family operates the GlueTread headquarters in Hiram, Ohio,” the company writes, and that is where kits are assembled. It also describes a “Montana Manufacturing crew” and says it now produces the T-handles and the Expedition Kit bag there.
The CO2 Inflation Kit carries a “Made in America” bullet, but its contents — two CO2 canisters, a Schrader chuck and an insulation sleeve — are given no manufacturing location anywhere on the page. The company’s own team profile is also softer than its headline, describing a commitment to “as many local products as possible.” Both are recorded here rather than smoothed over.
An unqualified “Made in USA” claim is held by the Federal Trade Commission to a standard of all or virtually all domestic content. GlueTread’s published component map is the kind of evidence that standard asks for, and it is stronger than most brands offer. The one accessory it does not cover is named above.
The story
The company dates its own origin to April 2018 and a specific tire. Dave Auble had just fitted a new set of rear tires to a Yamaha Kodiak 450 when a jackknifing trailer punctured a sidewall. A sidewall puncture is not repairable by the usual plug-and-patch route, and a new tire was the only conventional answer.
His answer instead was to cut tread off the ruined tire with an oscillating saw and glue the pieces onto an old tire to see whether the idea held. It did. Dave and his son Andy spent months working with an adhesive manufacturer to settle the formula, and founded GlueTread in 2018. The company says it “quite literally began in our garage.”
Andy Auble is now chief executive and splits his time between Ohio and Montana, where the machining side has grown; Dave answers the company’s phone line. The patch works from outside the tire, so the repair can be made without dismounting the wheel — which is the whole point when the vehicle is a tractor, a side-by-side, or an overland rig a long way from a shop.
Why they matter
Small hardware companies are where imported components usually hide, because a fifty-dollar kit rarely justifies the paperwork of naming four suppliers. GlueTread names them anyway, with towns attached.
The company is also candid in the other direction. It publishes, unprompted, that its repairs are “not U.S. Department of Transportation approved and are intended for off-road and emergency use only” — a limitation most marketing pages would bury rather than lead with.
The kits are an unusually literal picture of what a domestic supply chain looks like when someone writes it down: aluminum machined in Montana, rubber from Ohio, plugs from Texas, valves from Missouri and Arkansas, assembled by family in a small town in north-east Ohio.
Shop GlueTread products
Sidewall repair kits, complete tire repair kits, CNC-machined plug tools and the Expedition Kit — assembled in Hiram, Ohio from components sourced across four states.
GlueTread questions
Are GlueTread kits made in the USA?
Yes, and the company publishes where each part comes from: “GlueTread products are proudly 100% made in the USA.” Its USA-made page locates T-handles in Belgrade, Montana, plugs in Texas, rubber patches in Ohio and Colby valve stems in Missouri and Rogers, Arkansas.
Where is GlueTread based?
Hiram, Ohio. “Today, our team of friends and family operates the GlueTread headquarters in Hiram, Ohio,” the company writes. Kits are assembled there; no street address is published.
What does a GlueTread patch actually do?
It repairs a sidewall puncture from outside the tire, without dismounting it — damage that conventional plug-and-patch repair does not cover. GlueTread describes it as the first solution to external sidewall repair and holds a patent on it.
Is a GlueTread repair road legal?
The company says not, in its own FAQ: the repairs are “not U.S. Department of Transportation approved and are intended for off-road and emergency use only.” That is worth reading before buying.