Food for thought.

Gaijin

Gaijin

Gaijin

Soldato
Joined
18 Feb 2003
Posts
8,616
Location
Brighton/West Wicklow
I have quite mixed feelings as to what I put here, but i'm going to follow on from the thread where there was a link to the thread where the guy in the Teg inadvertantly maimed that motorcyclist, and it progressed on to how it could have been any of us and that we all have brown trouser moments.

And further from that, the amount of "is my tyre ******?" threads cropping up.

The reason i'm talking like a complete sap, is because at around 8am in the morning yesterday, in the middle of rush hour on the A23, and at 70mph, this happened:

browntrouser2.JPG


No warning. No bumps. Just blew up.

Had some interesting interaction with the steering wheel for a few seconds, nearly crashed into several cars and fought to keep it in the lane I was in and when i'd reduced speed, I had to limp off the A23 and change it.

Don't know really what i'm trying to say but it's a fairly new tyre and it quickly turned my morning on my head, and I dread to think what could have happened if i'd hit a car and caused a pile up in packed rush hour conditions - could have been incredibly, incredibly messy.

Guess what i'm trying to say is take care when you drive, buy decent tyres, and if you have to ask whether to replace a tyre because of kerbing or nail damage, you should just change it.

Is it really worth the risk of what happened to me for the sake of a new tyre?

No - it isn't, I consider myself a confident driver, but it shook me up so bad that I didn't even want to drive home after yesterday.

I'm not quite ready to **** Falken off yet, i'm going to wait until I get a professional opinion of what happened if it can be determined from the tyre.

Just be safe out there guys.
 
Same thing happend to me, in the middle of no where at 2:30/3:00am, fortunatly it was very controlled, very easy to bring down to speed and the roads were totally dead unlike your situation.
Unfortunate thing was, my mate decided to move the locking wheel nut key, so I couldnt get the spare on, and at the time I didnt have breakdown cover.
The 2+ hours walk to the next town and rather expensive taxi ride home really taught me a lesson!
 
Eye opening stuff indeed. Glad you were able to take control of the situation. I'm sure it wasn't easy with the car squirming all over the place.

Was it a front or rear tyre?
 
this is the one thing I never hope to expierience. Not something we are really told how to handle.

Makes me wanna buy runflats. :(
 
Ive had rear tyres go on me like that, and fortunately as they were uber low profile it didnt affect the car too much on the motorway.

It amazes me the amout of blokes who drive nose to tail at 0 mph on the Mway, if you have a blow out or mechanical failure youve got no chance:(
 
Question to the OP:

Were those tyres rated for extra load (XL)? Perhaps your car needs them and you didn't buy the right tyre for the weight of your car. Conceivably, that could have caused your blowout.

My LCR requires XL tyres and thats a portly family hatch!
 
agw_01 said:
Eye opening stuff indeed. Glad you were able to take control of the situation. I'm sure it wasn't easy with the car squirming all over the place.

Was it a front or rear tyre?
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Thanks mate, was pretty surprised myself, especially as humans have tendecies to do stupid things when they panic, and i'm certainly no exception to that!

I had Falken 452's on the front and ZE-512's on the rear, so it was the rear nearside that went and as per the ZE-512 thread, last weekend I was thinking of changing of swapping the fronts to the rears and vice versa to see how/if they differed, but never got round to it - thats not to say it definately would have occurred on the front but in any case, i'm glad that I didn't. I don't want to think how different it could have been if one of the fronts went :(

I wanted to put Eagle F1's on again as they were fanstastic on the stock wheels but because i'd just bought the alloys, it would have cost me another £160 extra to get Eagle F1's.

ChoÞÞer said:
bloody hell, at least no 1 was hurt and it was only just the tyre which needs replacing
Click to expand...

Agreed mate, unfortunately I can't afford to shell out the £200 for two new Eagle F1's for the whole rear, and so i'll need to put another ZE 512 on the rear as I don't want to have mismatched tyres :(

tbz_ck said:
Question to the OP:

Were those tyres rated for extra load (XL)? Perhaps your car needs them and you didn't buy the right tyre for the weight of your car. Conceivably, that could have caused your blowout.

My LCR requires XL tyres and thats a portly family hatch!
Click to expand...

I don't believe they are, however the car weighs a shade under 1200kg and the tyres are rated to at least 550kg a corner, and along with the slight weight reduction that i've done - I never travel with anything in the car except the bare necessities and me.
 
jamoor said:
also, check pressures frequently
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Aye, I checked the tyre pressure of the other rear tyre immediately after and it came in at 33psi (which is the recommended pressure) - I always slightly over inflate to 34-35psi.
 
but with pressures, it looks like you have a larger wheel/tyre on the car than OEM... therefore, how do you know you have a safe pressure?

for this reason, ive kept my golf on 15s as id rather not be taking stabs in the dark at guessing the pressure for 17s etc
 
Are you talking about the crease running about halfway up the sidewall? That was caused by me driving on the tyre when it had blown. There was no hard shoulder so I had to limp off the A23 to the nearest safe place to stop.
 
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Matt82 said:
but with pressures, it looks like you have a larger wheel/tyre on the car than OEM... therefore, how do you know you have a safe pressure?

for this reason, ive kept my golf on 15s as id rather not be taking stabs in the dark at guessing the pressure for 17s etc
Click to expand...

Because whereas the wheel is bigger, the tyres profile is lower to maintain the same overall diameter for the wheel/tyre.

I was always told that the pressure should remain the same as stock in this scenario - if this is wrong then I'd very much like to know!
 
Lucky escape by the sounds of it, glad you're ok, hope the test comes back with some reason why it popped.
 
SoliD said:
Lucky escape by the sounds of it, glad you're ok, hope the test comes back with some reason why it popped.
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Thanks mate - me too or i'm going to be driving like miss daisy for the foreseeable future. To say my driving confidence is dented is an understatement.

This is probably good to an extent, but I like to enjoy driving my car :(
 
Gaijin said:
Because whereas the wheel is bigger, the tyres profile is lower to maintain the same overall diameter for the wheel/tyre.

I was always told that the pressure should remain the same as stock in this scenario - if this is wrong then I'd very much like to know!
Click to expand...

yeah, its common sense that the rolling radius stays the same. the pressures will vary a lot though.

on my golf, they left the factory with two tyre options 205/50/15 and 195/50/15

on the 205s have a recommended pressure of 32/28 (PSI, F/R) the 195s are recommended at 38/35

hence.... ive never had the balls to change wheel/tyre size to something that the manufacturer has no recommended pressures for as youll be plain and simple guessing them.

anyone here own a E46 M3? can you post up the pressures for the 18" and 19" wheels please

huge differences
 
Well done for holding onto it, looks like it went good and proper.

Tyres blow out for seemingly no reason. I doubt it was through any fault of yours, not unless it was completely flat or pumped up to 45psi.
 
as for variations in pressures i found a good demo, this is for the porsche 993 which had 16-17 and 18 inch wheels

Summer Tires
front 16" wheels 36 (2.5)
17" wheels 36 (2.5)
18" wheels 36 (2.5) turbo 36 (2.5)


rear 16" wheels 44 (3.0)
17" wheels 36 (2.5)
18" wheels 44 (3.0) turbo 44 (3.0)


so change widths, profile and diameter all need different pressures
 
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