HOUSTON – Sham-Wow, Billy Mays with Oxy Clean: The most outrageous commercials are often the most memorable. This As Seen on TV Tuesday, consumer expert Amy Davis is going back to the makers of Flex Seal to test one of their products by replicating their own experiments with Flex Tape.
The product claims it instantly stops leaks. In the commercial, pitchman Phil Swift saws a boat in half and then uses Flex Tape to tape it back together. A boat was not in our budget, but Davis did buy a plastic tote.
She used a power drill to replicate another Swift sales pitch. In the commercial, he slaps a piece of Flex Tape over a hole with water gushing out from a glass container filled with hundreds of gallons of water. The tape stops the leak. Â
"The super strong waterproof tape that can instantly patch, bond, seal and repair!" exclaims an enthusiastic Swift.Â
Davis filled a much smaller plastic  tote with water and then drilled a hole in the side. You have to peel the clear plastic backing from the Flex Tape. She slapped it on the tote over the leak.  At first, the tape held the water in, but minutes later, it sprang a leak first from the side,
then from the top, then from the side again.Â
"What we've got here is a major problem," Davis said. "This is a leak, and I cannot hold this water in."Â
Davis then tried to seal the hole from the inside, like the commercial claims you can also do. That seemed to work. It held the water in for at least seven hours before we emptied the tote.Â
Our next test was trying Flex Tape on a hole in a water hose. We also capped the hose to create more pressure. But when we turned the water on, it sprayed from both sides of the Flex Tape covering the hole.Â
In the end, Flex Teal failed two out of three of our tests. We bought it on Amazon for $9.99.
