Cheap tyre or just unlucky?
Discussion
Hi guys
Writing this from iPhone so hopefully the picture works. My brother was travelling along the a43 in his old vectra the yesterday when he suffered a blow out and ended up sideways facing the central reservation. He was indicating 75 so travelling around 70 at a guess.
The tyre has blown in 2 places:
Now my first thought is 'cheap tyre, you get what you deserve'. But many people have rebuffed me on facebook and just called it unlucky.
What's the consensus? Would a more expensive tyre been less likely to fail like this?
He says he didn't hit anything he knows of. It just went, in a split second he was losing control.
Writing this from iPhone so hopefully the picture works. My brother was travelling along the a43 in his old vectra the yesterday when he suffered a blow out and ended up sideways facing the central reservation. He was indicating 75 so travelling around 70 at a guess.
The tyre has blown in 2 places:
Now my first thought is 'cheap tyre, you get what you deserve'. But many people have rebuffed me on facebook and just called it unlucky.
What's the consensus? Would a more expensive tyre been less likely to fail like this?
He says he didn't hit anything he knows of. It just went, in a split second he was losing control.
Looks like iphone failed the picture. Here is the raw link if someone wants to fix it!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f9uxrfbuby6a6cs/2014-10-...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f9uxrfbuby6a6cs/2014-10-...
bimsb6 said:
Unusual for a tyre to blow in 2 places at the same time , sure he didn't hit something?
He's convinced he didn't. He's a proper petrol head like me, done a lot of circuit stuff and has a 6th sense for the car. That said, he said it happened so fast he doesn't know what happened. It was a rear tyre, so if he hit something he missed it with the front.
That looks like impact damage to me (possibly even “entry and exit wounds”) probably from something flicked up or set spinning by the front tyre. Which is probably also why it's on the inside of the rear tyre.
Most of the structural failures I've seen have involved the tread separating from the carcass or the side-wall splitting around a substantial proportion of it's circumference.
To have identical damage in two distinct places simultaneously makes it very unlikely to be structural failure IMO.
Most of the structural failures I've seen have involved the tread separating from the carcass or the side-wall splitting around a substantial proportion of it's circumference.
To have identical damage in two distinct places simultaneously makes it very unlikely to be structural failure IMO.
Looks like the result of underinflation to me. As previous poster said things get hot and the tyre disintegrates. Nothing particularly unusual either.
Perhaps a slow puncture prior, if your brother is sure they were all properly inflated when he set off.
Particularly on a straight road it can be hard to feel a rear tyre that is becoming even very dangerously underinflated.
Perhaps a slow puncture prior, if your brother is sure they were all properly inflated when he set off.
Particularly on a straight road it can be hard to feel a rear tyre that is becoming even very dangerously underinflated.
I had something similar once, although I managed to stop when the sound of the tyre suddenly changed considerably.
It was a very frosty morning and in the early hours I had set off from the South Coast to Manchester. On the A34 the car felt odd, but this was easily explained by the fact that it was apparently ungritted, and the route was dotted with cars that had simply left the road in various directions. So that's why the steering felt so vague...
It wasn't that at all, the tyre valve was leaking and it was running flatter and flatter until it could take no more. The shoulder was dark like the pic above, and the sidewall was hot and gummy and very weak indeed, it felt like a finger could be poked through it. In the pic above it looks like it was failing above the A and the O of Champiro as well, but those didn't actually split.
It was a very frosty morning and in the early hours I had set off from the South Coast to Manchester. On the A34 the car felt odd, but this was easily explained by the fact that it was apparently ungritted, and the route was dotted with cars that had simply left the road in various directions. So that's why the steering felt so vague...
It wasn't that at all, the tyre valve was leaking and it was running flatter and flatter until it could take no more. The shoulder was dark like the pic above, and the sidewall was hot and gummy and very weak indeed, it felt like a finger could be poked through it. In the pic above it looks like it was failing above the A and the O of Champiro as well, but those didn't actually split.
Edited by karma mechanic on Saturday 4th October 21:51
Edited by karma mechanic on Saturday 4th October 21:52
ging84 said:
looks to me like the tyre is on the wrong way round
does it have the same labels and markings on the outside, the side they are meant to be on, as it's the side you can actually see when it's on the car
WTF?? does it have the same labels and markings on the outside, the side they are meant to be on, as it's the side you can actually see when it's on the car
Anyway, back to sensible suggestions - is that another split forming just to the left of the right hand blowout? Looks like the sidewall has cracked and separated in two places. Was he running the right pressures and has it ever gone flat and been left flat for a period of time with the cars weight on it?
I'd be going back to the big tyre chain with tyre in hand and asking them to send it back to the manufacturer for investigation. I'm sure they'd like to know if they have a dodgy batch.
te reviews in Auto Express. Might be worth him spending a bit more on a decent brand.Campo said:
WTF??
Why WTF?you know most tyres are directional right?
and generally they have a lot less markings than that on the inside than this
i actually think i might just be able to make out some arrows markings on the bottom left indicating the direction being wrong
fitting a tyre backwards could eventually overheat at motorway speeds, it certainly would do close to it's rated speed and this could result in the the tyre wall failing like this
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