Tyres falling to pieces!
Tyres falling to pieces!
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beanbag

Original Poster:

7,346 posts

271 months

Wednesday 3rd December 2014
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I thought I'd share this for amusement and the fact that I was shocked things could get so bad. My other half has been putting off her tyre change for quite some time now as she was short on money however as I've been driving the car to get some stuff sorted in the engine, I found it would skid about loads and was completely unstable in corners.

A quick look at the tyres confirmed the front ones was totally worn so I booked it in for a pair of PS3's.

When I took it in, the mechanic asked me to come into the garage to show me the rears. While they had enough tread to make them just about legal, the rubber was so rotten, it could literally be picked away with the mechanics fingernails!

When he put it in the machine to remove the tyre from the alloy, the tyre literally fell apart in front of our eyes with cracking all around the rim of the tyre! (I got them also changed)

Shocking stuff! Short of the long is I'll keep a closer eye on gf's car... rolleyes


TheAngryDog

13,258 posts

239 months

Wednesday 3rd December 2014
quotequote all
How old were the tyres?

beanbag

Original Poster:

7,346 posts

271 months

Wednesday 3rd December 2014
quotequote all
TheAngryDog said:
How old were the tyres?
They must have come with the car when it was bought new back in 2009. The guy in the tyre shop said they were stamped with 2008!

Smegmium

2,354 posts

200 months

Wednesday 3rd December 2014
quotequote all
God thats bad, they arent what i'd class as "old" at all - must be cheap rubbish...

I have a set over 15 years old on one of my cars and they look as good as new, they are a funny metric dunlop tyre so were probably well made.


IanCress

4,409 posts

196 months

Wednesday 3rd December 2014
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Has it been run almost flat at any point? Although unlikely to be the cause if both rears are like this.

This happened to one of my tyres when it deflated on the motorway. Tried to fill it full of tyre foam but it just came out the other side!

anonymous-user

84 months

Wednesday 3rd December 2014
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I've had a similar thing on a 2005 Polo 1.4

We bought a 2 year old Polo 1.4 as a company runabout for the staff and a couple of years down the line was just checking it over one day when I discovered that despite the rear tyres having considerable tread depth on them they were quite badly cracked and had almost become quite hard and brittle.

They were the original tyres from new so were over 4 years old and had covered about 35,000 miles, but I assume due to the light weight of the rear of the Polo and the easy life they had, they were hardly worn.

I think they would have actually fell to bits/delaminated well before they actually wore down to the legal limit.

DrDoofenshmirtz

16,952 posts

230 months

Wednesday 3rd December 2014
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If people followed the rule 'best tyres on the rear', which usually means the new tyres...we wouldn't have this common problem.

beanbag

Original Poster:

7,346 posts

271 months

Wednesday 3rd December 2014
quotequote all
Smegmium said:
God thats bad, they arent what i'd class as "old" at all - must be cheap rubbish...

I have a set over 15 years old on one of my cars and they look as good as new, they are a funny metric dunlop tyre so were probably well made.
They weren't cheap! Pirelli P-Zero's!

Not sure if they've been deflated before but they were run-flats.

Either way I'm glad she's got some decent rubber on the car now....in time for winter and the rain.