Originally Posted by
Trakhak
When I worked in a long-established bike shop in the early '70's, we employees got used to patiently explaining to customers why we no longer patched tubes: not just because of the labor cost but also because we couldn't guarantee the patch wouldn't fail.
I'm not sure that's a real reason; otherwise, shops could offer patching without guarantee at a discount over replacement. But if the cost of patching exceeds that of replacement, there's no incentive to offer patching as an option. Perhaps that will change with hyper-expensive TPU tubes.