Nasty50-Five

So I drove home from work and park the car in the driveway, few hours later my wife come home and says "hey your tire is flat" so I go and check my tires and find my front driver side tire completely flat and siting on the floor. By now it's like 9pm and wasn't gonna deal with trying to find the leak. Next day I come home and look for the leak, couldn't find any nails or hole but once I pulled the wheel off I found a huge crack running around the entire inner sidewall of the tire. Don't know how it happened or if it was from faulty tires but thanks god I made it home with my tire blowing on me on the freeway. CHECK YOUR TIRES GUYS!!

MrKool

Ouch...

I check my tires every now and then. Gives me peace of mind so that when the wify drives the car, I know, she will be alright.

Vic55

I love TPMS.

mikey33

Wow, that could have been scary if it popped at high speeds. Good thing your safe.

Forrest Gump 9

Is your car lower? Anyway, welcome to the world of negative camber. May want to recheck your alignment.

e50zero

yah i had this happen when i had 20's on. I thought it was a flat and I was driving on the freeway, by the time i pulled over and checked the entire inside wall was blown out and needless to say the rim was cracked. Luckily you made it home safe.

GregMB

I gotta ask....what brand / model tire was that?

Stock wheel & width?


-G

Nasty50-Five

I do have an ELM but the car is at stock height right now and has not been lowered with these tires.

The tires are OEM Conti's on stock AMG wheels, however those tires were bought used just because I got B. Gorman building me a set of HRE's and didn't want to get new tires since I was getting wheels and tires from B. Gorman.

Yeah I felt pretty lucky that the tire didn't blow on my way home from work, it would have been right at rush hour on the 101 freeway, wouldn't have ended good at all. I think that tire was just old, makes you think twice about buying used tires, I guess it's true, you get what you pay for.

GT-ER

That tire was probably running at a relatively low pressure, I've seen that kind of damage before due to pressure and heat.

You think you got it bad? I bought new wheels and tires and 3 DAYS later I busted one of my rear tires ( something punctured the sidewall ) and it could not be repaired. So I had to replace my 3 day old, $380 tire with another $380 tire.

Rhaunschild1980

Had this same exact thing happen to my wife and I riding in my Audi b7 s4. Just finished an 80 mile trip and started to notice the steering feel very sluggish as we pulled into our neighborhood.....cracked sidewall just like the picture. Glad that you are okay and I definitely learned to check tires more often!

Nasty50-Five

I must admit I didn't check tire pressure in a long time, no excuses, total laziness on my part

Yeah, I'm definitely making it a point to check tire pressure more often.

GregMB

If you can find the DOT stamp on the tire you can decode the original manufacturing date.

The last 4 digits are the build week & build year. (ex. 2607 = 26th week of 2007)

Would be interesting to check it, but it sounds like low tire pressure (causing excessive heat) was probably the culprit.

-G

taurran

Been there done that. I went through 8 tires in the first 1.5 years I owned this car - all blowouts on the inner sidewall.

Note- I don't think they were all caused by low pressure. The roads here suck.

Mike@Vossen

That's nuts man!

Faast

You didn't by any chance,buy those re-treaded/threaded tires,the ones that truckers usually buy or did you

TheVazha

I have noticed that I have a bit of negative camber. I'm low but not slammed. Will an alignment help this? How does an alignment help with the rear tires, does it also solve the camber issue in the rear?

OK55

Just had a look at the pictures. The failure is on the inner shoulder. Classic underinflation failure mode. Tyre must have run underinflated for some time. The tyre normally flexes at its shoulder as each part of its tread rotates thro the contact patch. When the pressure is too low this flex is excessive and the tyre fails at it's shoulder.

The trouble with low profile tyres is that low pressure is hard to notice. I've had *pressure loss (pothole bent the rim) at approx 105 mph and only been alerted by a faint strange rumbling noise. Tested the steering by tugging it slightly (and found it was stiffer in one direction) to confirm. Other than that the car was rock steady and tracking as straight as an arrow. In most cars you would notice one side or corner was lower but my airmatic system joined in the conspiracy and kept the car level, hiding the fact that a front tyre was flat...! And, of course, by the time I stopped, the sidewall had been marked by the rim. Not as much as yours, but enough to kill the tyre. **

I'm definitely sticking with my 18 rims. This problem can only be worse on 19s and 20s. It's also clear to me that the TPMS I've always considered unneccessary is worth it's weight in gold.

Brgds

Nasty50-Five

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! So as many of you know what happened with my tire about a week ago, I decided to purchase all new tires this past monday. So last night I got my brother, my cousin and me in my E55 and we are coming across the San Mateo Bridge around 9pm from my other brothers rehearsal for his wedding. All of a sudden I feel my steering wheel get stiff and start pulling to the left, I realized I had a flat tire and the worst part is I had nowhere to pull, over I had to ride it out for about a mile until I got off the bridge and pulled over. I could smell the rubber from the tire inside the car. So I pulled over get out and see that my front left tire is completely flat! This is the same side that had the crack in the old tire. I checked the tire could not see any nails, no cracks, no rubbing anywhere. I have no clue what the f*ck is going on here! The only thing I can think of is the valve stem, the tires are brand new, 4 days old, so I know they had pressure in them before this. Anybody have any idea what it could be. Like I said the only thing I think it could be is the valve stem

OK55

I've had to fix a leaking rim. I've also had to get my tyre people to sort out a tyre that wasn't properly seated which was leaking from between the bead seat and the rim. It's quite possible you may have one of these...
Brgds

Nino S

At least you made it home ok. I am that guy at the gas station checking tire pressure every time I fill up. It is worth it for fuel economy alone but also gives a little piece of mind at 100+ mph highway blasts. Definitley looks like it was run on low pressure for a while

Richie999

Hits nail on head. I spent 7 years working for America's largest indy tire store. Low air pressure is the root cause leading to excessive heat.

This really takes me back. Car owners rarely wanted to acknowledge any negligence; it was always the manufacturer's fault.

The reality is with modern lower profile tires, and the stiffness of a lower profile sidewall, you may never visually notice low air pressure.

You did however notice the car pulling towards the flat tire but didn't realize the pull....I'll bet you remember the vehicle pulling now!

jkintegra

Bead seal most likely. especially with this multipiece wheels..

it will drive you crazy.

My recommendation is to take all wheels and have the bead seals check on all of them.

Have they ever been rebuilt? This is a leading cause as well if not done properly.

Nasty50-Five

I'm running stock wheels right now, not the HRE's in the pic. But anyway I went to the tire shop and had them check the tire out and they said it was actually a defective tire. I didn't ask them what they found but I'm going back tomorrow to have them replace it so I'll ask then, It's just weird how its the same tire that went flat on my old set so I figure it must have be the valve stem or a crack in the wheel. Like I said they were brand new tires (Bridgestone Potenza 760) in stock sizes. I'm curious to find out what they found, I wish I would have asked today.

BK63amg

wow...that's scary dude...glad you made it home safe!