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My wife was driving along the highway around 65mph - she heard a loud pop and lost control of the vehicle, luckily it was late and no cars were near her. She managed to regain control and pull over to the side of the road without hitting anything. Seriously, unbelievable luck - Certainly a traumatic situation, but we're just relieved she is ok.
On to my question - The tires have less than 10k miles on them and are less than a year old. They are Cooper Zeon RS3-A and performance up to this point has been good. The rim is really trashed, and will certainly need to be replaced - I have a warranty on the tires themselves, but feel Cooper should replace the rim.. Is this plausible or will have I to take this to small claims? I'm also feeling a little nervous about continuing with these tires at all and may request (demand) all 4 be replaced by Pep Boys where I purchased them.
Attached is a photo of the tire after complete sidewall seperation - Road side assistance said they have never seen a blow out this bad before, let me know your thoughts.
Glad your wife is safe first of all! This looks scary to say the least.
This what I would do:
1. Take the actual tire (or what's left of it of course) to where you bought them from and have them replace all your tires with good brand name tires because you simply refuse to drive on Cooper tires that destruct like that!
2. Have them replace the rim as well
3. Never buy Cooper tires ever again
4. If they don't cooperate, take them to small claims.
That's really quite amazing. I'd think you'd have to drive a long way to have the rim cut the tire off like that, which it does not sound like she did. So it must have been nearly instantaneous. At worst I would think you could negotiate a pretty good deal on a new set of a different brand. Depending on where you bought them, you might get a new set. They will probably balk at a rim. But suing is not a good option. "This happened" is not sufficient proof of either negligence or a product defect - especially for the other three. You might win, depending on how much the court wanted to hold your feet to the fire, but life is too short.
I would deal with pepboys directly, that is where you bought them. They have decent customer service they should replace the rim. I also would switch brands of tires to something else.
A long time ago i had pepboys put tires on a truck i had with custom wheels. The tech used a socket that was to large for the whole of the wheel so it tore up the recessed whole where the lugs went. I wasn't happy about it but they were completely usable and nothing you would notice from 5 feet away unless you looked for it. I did complain to the manager and they actually replaced all 4 wheels on my truck.
check out : http://us.coopertire.com/Customer-Ca...formation.aspx
You will find cooper contact info as well as National Highway Traffic Safety Administration contact tele number.
You should have expense free replacements.
I know other tire manufactures that had the same tread separation problem and it went on for years as they would repair car damage and have customer sign a liability contract that would prevent customer from telling others of the problem.
My wife had a blow out last week while driving my pickup. She to was on the freeway and going about 65. She was able to make her way to the shoulder and she is ok.
In my case the tires have about 50K miles (OE). They are BF Goodrich and the treads were good on all the tires. The sidewalls were shredded but the wheel is ok, just some minor bruising. However, the rotating sidewall tore a fender brace loose and bent the fender edge. I'll just replace all the tires with OE, Goodyear, or Michelin, depending on my decision to replace the truck (not because of the blowout).
In you case I would follow xserver's and gixxerboy's suggestions.
(2) 2004 Mercedes Benz CLK500, (2) 2005 ML500, SL500
My wife's CLK500 had a RF tire identical to yours, happened out of town, spare put on by AAA. I had her take it to well known tire shop to check out the tire and if any damage to the car. They told her tire was run under inflated, funny as I check her tires once a week.
When she returned home, I looked the MB E55 18" over and did not see anything. I took it to my best tire shop and had the tire sidewall remnants dismounted, upon inspecting the wheel, it had a hairline crack from the outside rim across the outer bead. The shop also told me that it looked like
it was run under inflated, caused by the cracked rim. Michigan potholes.
The tire was a Michelin Primacy MXM4. Glad your wife is ok.
03-02-2016, 12:39 AM
