I have a $100 huffy mountain bike... Actually works good but I will upgrade.
I got a pin hole flat and patched it and it didn't leak for about 250 miles of riding. Now I want to ride again and the tire is flat. I used a bucket water and found the patch I did is leaking. So I re-did the patch. I sanded the old glue off (as good as I could without destroying the rubber) and re-did the patch but it slow leaks already.


Does it matter that I'm using very cheap glue and patches or are patches just known to leak eventually (250 miles if pretty good I guess)?

I use these ebay $1 kits,
(I can't post links yet but basically these are the black and orange patches and mini tubes of glue kit for $1)


the glue, the patches and the metal cheese grater sand paper thing. I use fresh glue usually (I have like ten mini tubes for 45 cents each).

One thing I noticed is it seems like I should be installing the patch on a semi-inflated tube instead of how everyone says the tube should be flat (to press patch in hard) but what I'm seeing happens is once I install the patch on a flat tube and let it sit for about 20 mins to harden, when I inflate it, the patch doesn't stretch with the tube and then the sides of the patches peel up.

I dunno if it's because I'm trying to put glue over old glue and re-patch a patch or if it's because I used too much glue or both reasons.
I do probably put a bit too much glue and I also put it on the orange side of the patch which I don't think is correct, but I let it dry before contacting the two together and I put a 5lb weight on the patch and left it for 15 mins before inflating but it's slow leaking now.



I will look into 'best bike tube patches' and maybe I should really upgrade to a better brand than these $1 ebay kits but other than that, is it also probably leaking because I tried to patch over an old patch??
thanks

EDIT: the tube slow leaked overnight , I didn't put it in rim, so no chance of debris in rim caused tire to go flat again. I will make sure inner tire is clean. I have spare tubes but I'd rather patch until a new tube is warranted.

edit: it seems (based on threads and based on what 'best patch kits' look like that the cheap ebay ones are just as good if not the same thing rebranded as Lezyne etc. And it's good I'm using fresh glue always since I have many small new tubes.

So maybe it's because I put too much glue, and I put glue on the patch also, and I might not be waiting long enough before contacting them together. but I'm afraid to wait too long and then have a bunch of dried glue over the hole and need to sand that down and hope that'll give as good a bond after sanding.