Yesterday I began my 600 mile trek to Indiana for Turkey vacation I made it about 100 miles in when this happened and i had to come home.

Tried to pass a semi at 80-85 mph or so and the car started feeling like it was being pushed aside by wind so I slowed up a bit still trying pass. Still getting the feeling the rear wanted to kick out I slowed down more and turned the radio down... Thats when I heard it. Tire flat.

I get out of the car and check ... Holy heck! :shock: The side wall has ripped apart completely around the rim but there are no obvious puncture holes but I do see like every six inches of diameter on the tread there is like a ***** melted out of the tire.

I went to dealer for warranty/defect possibility no. So I went to NTB and they dont know what would have caused it but will call pirelli in the morning to see about replacement or a discount on new tire.

 

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I can't imagine the speed rating would be that low, I dunno what could have caused that but they should cover it

 

Glad you got er stopped without having the thing swap ends. Good luck with adjustment for faulty tire.

PS How did it drive with that teeny spare?

 

Glad you & your car are fine. What psi did you run the tires at & what was the mileage on them? Please keep us posted on what caused the side wall to blow out.

 

Remember the three rules of OEM tires; they are to be Cheap, Round, and Black, and they don't care too much about the Round and the Black part. I highly recommend you use this as an opportunity to get rid of all four of them. Try to get a local tire dealership to road-hazard them all out, and instead get what I bought. They are Hankook 255/50R17s. The advantage with the wider rubber is that you get a little cushion around the rim for those unfortunate curb accidents, while at the same time your overall diameter will remain virtually the same (27.2" versus 27.0"). Also, the Hankook is a far better and stickier tire.

 

this has happened to me once driving Yokohama AVS Sport 18" rubbers on my car, when one of the tires had a problem with the pressure valve and leaked..
30 miles later or so at high speed.. the exact same result
despite being the highest speed rating available from Yokohama ('Y' is supposedly capable of 160mph++), and low profile form factor, that didn't stop the low pressure tire sidewall from blowing apart.

since then i get my tire pressure checked every so often.. at least once a week

 

I had the same problem wit hsome Good Year RSAs. It had a slow leak and I was driving a bit faster than the tire could handle at low pressure. The complete inner sidewall was gone.

 

Wow! I've never seen this. Seems most are saying low tire pressure might cause this? Eeep! Will have to check my tire pressure more often!

 

In my case it was. Me being too lazy to get it fixed cost me a tire and rim. Not saying this is anyone else's case, just what happened to me.

 

even my case, i think i'm the one to blame, as i noticed it was leaking, but ignored it as a pressure "top-up" seemed to hold up long enough to get me going, and i kept thinking i'd take it to the tyre shop over the weekend..
well it barely kept up for a day and burst to pieces..
i looked inside the tyre after it burst to find small rubber ***** that got worn off the side wall under high speed..
just imagine the friction and the heat the sidewall would have to endure if it's driven on for long

 

Well I have some suspicions to cause but, the tires rates for 140 mph speeds right? I dunno. I haven't had any tire pressure loss/issues. I think maybe the tire couldn't handle what I was putting out. We checked other tires and they are not the same batch numbers.

Pirelli will give me a 30% discount for the replacement unless I want to go through the hassle of having NTB send them the tire and then they come back and cry abuse or some other B/S. Too bad the dealer wouldn't help me out. Oh well. I will be on the lookout for a new set of tires after the first of the year.

 

I wonder if something punctured the tire, and combined with the high rate of speed (80+mph) tore the tire apart.

 

NTB could not find a puncture. I was just refunded 30% of cost of tire (which basically covered the price of remounting). Not too bad considering NTB matched tirerack.com's price of $119

 

The inside photo showing the hub side of the wheel shows the radial distortion of the tire spinning on the rim.

This in turn caused the tearing action in the sidewall where it seperated away from the tire due to no air pressure and the rotational force of the rim against the rubber contacted with the roadway surface.

Basically you hit something that dislodged the bead on the tire at a high rate of speed which caused the tire to spin on the rim under load, releasing air pressure to the point where the side wall became squessed against the rim which seperated the rubber on contact with the road.

maybe you ran over some chunks of rock, concrete or asphalt thinking awe it will be okay.

I actually had this happen once at slow speed, I high centered my lowered mini truck which had a built motor in it, over a speed bump. Just to the point where my drivers side rear tire was just high enough off the ground and in contact with the speed bump. As I gassed the truck forward and then slamming it in reverse this action somehow dislodged the beading on the tire and bingo instant flat. Just needed to pump up some air in the tire to re-bead it and it was fine. But I could imagine running it at 80 mph or so would have shredded the tire.