MaverickMLFD371

Having the 05 Stang parked for the winter and driving my dad's 350Z occasionally. I was on my way home from work driving the Z yesterday. About 25 min after driving it, I start to get closer to my house. All of a sudden i feel the car drifting to the left with the wheel facing straight. Ok, seemed odd, but I thought maybe it was windy out. So as i get closer to home, it gets worse, im literally steering the wheel almost 60 degrees to the right to stay straight on the road. Finally pull up to my house, the front tire is still deflating! Aww crud!

Really really bad odor was coming from that tire as it was deflating, nothing like i've ever smelled b4, but smelled like something was burning! Soo jacked the car up, took the wheel off, put the donut on. Good to go. Took the wheel in the garage to inspect it, didnt see anything.

So I go to work next day and i work for my dad who runs a trucking co that has a truck shop next door. Took it to the tire shop guy and told him to look at it. Rolled it to him, he inflated it a little bit, quirted oil all over the outside of the times, there was an area bubbling! Wipes it off, a good 1 inch gas on the wall of the tire. It was on the outside of the tire facing inside the wheel well. Would never have noticed it.

So i ask him, what could be the cause of this. he said well it could be a number of things. Judging by the wall of the tire, he said it could of been rubbing up against a strut. So he jacked up the car, looked in, nothing! Tire has perfect clearance. So he said ok well you could of hit something on the highway. I figured, ok, happens all the time. Took the tire off the rim and couldnt' believe what was sitting in the tire. Hundreds of pieces of rubber that shredded from the inside of the tire.!!! The whole inside of the wall was all torn up. I was like, what did I hit!?!?!?! He said, you didnt hit anything, you just had your tire underinflated! I was like, you got to be kidding me???

Ended up being $175 for the new tire! O well, lesson learened!

Lesson, for everyone, keep your tires inflated at the proper PSI of your tire could end up like this.

Here are some pics i took with the camera phone! Unbelievable!

JeffreyDJ

That's crazy. Honestly never heard of that, very weird.

Vermillion98

I'm not sure of the details, but I remember seeing on a 350z message board lots of complaints by 350Z owners about tire related problems due to some problem with the front suspension.

TomServo92

It was front-end alignment issue. Nissan issued a recall to have the front realigned and in some case, replace badly worn front tires. I believe it was only for 03/04 models.

hi5.0

Underinflation puts more stress on the sidewalls. The tire must have really been underinflated to end up like that. Maybe in its underinflated state it was making contact somewhere - at least enough to heat it enough to make that burning smell? Last question, since your father runs a trucking company do you fill your cars' tires with nitrogen instead of regular air? Just wondering.

bob

Thats a run-flat, not to be confused with a an extended mobility tire, that tire was severely under inflated and literally run on while being flat. the only thing that was rubbing was the inside of the tire. If I had to guess, it probably has a small hole in it, barring of course any sort of problem with the valvestem or rim, excluding a loss of air pressure due to time and temperature.

pilot1129

what does filling with nitrogen do as opposed to filling with regular air?

bob

Nitrogen takes longer to leak down and maintains a more consistant pressure over a wider range of temperatures and doesnt corrode the valvestem or rim like regular old air does, however the latter is true because nitrogen isnt that soup mix like air (primarily talking moisture and not the other gases).

MaverickMLFD371

Yes, there was a front end alignment issue on the 350Z's but that was only for the 03 year models. My dad's is an 04.

As for the smell, it was probably the smell of the air inside the tire from getting heat up by it being flat.

As far as the nitrogen, no i do not fill the tires with nitrogen.

But hey, lesson learned, keep your tires inflated!