Tires should be patched, not plugged (and only when the hole is nowhere near the sidewall). I've never had a tire plug hold, or a patch fail.
Patching them can still be done at home but I've always let the guy at the garage do it, because he sees a couple of cases a day instead of one every 3-4 years like I do.
Each of the tires on my old Chevy at one point had over a dozen plugs. Each plug lasted several years.
The beauty of a plug is the kit is five bucks, comes with about a dozen plugs and you can use it anywhere. Get a thirty five dollar compressor to run off your battery and you can fix a puncture by yourself in the middle of nowhere. Not so with a patch.
But then I also won't drive more than twenty miles from my house without a toolbox...so....
I don't disagree - but here in the desert where my tires only last four or five years due to heat and sun, my plugs survive for the life of the tire; by increasing the factor of safety with a patch I gain little but confidence.
In my experience, when you're first headed out on your own with (probably) a used vehicle with tires that are of unknown age, you're more likely to burst one than simply have a small puncture/leak. Maybe that's just because my state (IN) sucks at road repairs though.
Why is this sad? It shows we are living in a very service-oriented society where a lot of people will happily let "experts" do all sorts of tasks for them that maybe 50 years ago nobody would have imagined spending money on. Also, I think most quality tires nowadays don't puncture or rip that easily anymore, at least not the ones on sale here in Europe so most people hardly ever have to change or fix tires on the spot; and when having to switch to mandatory winter tires, well, then they obviously prefer to pay a little for it. And I doubt you are able to cost-effectively and efficiently balance and mount your own tires on the rims since you are very likely lacking all the (expensive) tools.
Generally while not very applicable to tires but you can hardly do any repairs on modern cars anymore anyway. So I think these small tasks just died along with repairs. Nowadays cars are "black boxes" and they either drive or you hand the whole thing to someone who will hook it up to a computer and then do magic according to the manufacturer's specifications until that box drives again.
Plugging a tire is simpler than fixing a bike tire in most cases. I can plug a tire without taking it off the vehicle. It costs $5 and less than ten minutes. It took me less than five minutes to teach my son when he was six.
It is a sad state because tires are not a black box. This is not an anachronistic tool or bit of knowledge. Flat tires are common. If one finds it necessary to buy a replacement tire (which most people will) for $100 instead of plugging (or even patching) the old one - this is a sad state. It is wasteful of one's time and money.
Even for something simple like plugging or patching a tire you need knowledge and expertise to really do it WELL and to know when NOT to do it - and most DIY kind of guys just got some "lore" (often wrong) passed down and follow it blindly... and then you blow a front tire on the highway and go off the deep end. No thankyou very much.
