Tire Failure opinions?

I'm about to pull away from helping a friend with storage unit arrangement when I inspect my tires briefly and find a fine fissure on the sidewall.

I gave it a 2nd glance, and found the sidewall SPLIT almost all the way around, but its almost impossible to see anywhere but the bottom position of the tire where the split is force open wide enough to see inside. This is a DD, and the tread has at least 3/32 left so its not a wear or dryrot issue, and i've not hit anything nor have i raced on these tires ever.

It feels like this is a manufacturing defect to me. I'll have pictures up shortly for your eyes, but initial impressions? I'm %95 sure its not vandalism, because i found a 2nd tire on the car with the exact same sidewall failure on 3/4 of the sidewall, and because the inner sidewall appears undamaged (which I feel would be impossible if someone was -trying- to damage the tire.)

I will probably need help going back to the vendor over this.

sounds like tread separation to sidewall problem....Very common now. It's the cheaper way to make tires they used to add a small strip of gum rubber there. Just ask Firestone.

I didn't think these Goodyears were a super-budget tire... what recourse you think I have with vendor?

Nothing ventured nothing gained. They will liklely say you ran them under inflated.

I've got two tires like this on the MX6 right now. They're maybe 2.5 years old, Nexens.

One actually just went flat because of it a few days ago. Blargh.

In reply to 44Dwarf:

yeah, that dog wont hunt, not only do I check it weekly, I make them put it one pound over when they rotate them.

Hmmm.. what model Goodyears are they?

I bought a set of Eagle GTs for my kid's Accord last year and one of the rears had a catastrophic failure on the highway. The car crossed three lanes of traffic at 90 degrees and went down an embankment. I can't believe that no other cars were involved or that the car didn't roll.

The car didn't hit any debris and there were no potholes in the area (we searched). Inspection of the tire showed no damage anywhere on the tread portion. The result of the police investigation was "Tire Failure".

The tires were less than a year old and properly inflated (checked two days earlier). I think they had something like 11k miles on them. Goodyear replaced the tire under warranty, but it still left me with a pretty bad feeling about them. I also had to replace an alloy wheel and a second tire that was ruined in the spin, and then have the car aligned.

It was the first time that I had bought Goodyear's in 20 years, and I never expected this.

I usually only buy BFgoodrich tires because I would rather not have things like that happen. Has anyone seen a bf goodrich tire fail from an apparent defect? I havent, but thats certainly not to say it doesnt happen, they just seem to be noticeably above average in quality. My dad always used goodyears on his GLHS, but I havent paid much attention to them since then.

Every tire company has or will have this type of failure. Cost cutting by bean counters and make it quicker Kiezen events that don't take in to account everything the gum strip does. After seeing what happened to the auto industry in this country wait until you see the crap we'll get for tires made somewhere else....VERY few tire plants left here in the USA. Buying tires is a crap shoot at best now.

Tires are prorated as far as warranty goes. With 3/32" tread left, don't expect much.

I seem to remember back when the tire rack used to have that spot in the back of the mag that someone asked a question similar to this and tire rack guy said it was no big deal. Of course my memory is not the best and I'm in intense pain right now.

Travis_K wrote: I usually only buy BFgoodrich tires because I would rather not have things like that happen. Has anyone seen a bf goodrich tire fail from an apparent defect? I havent, but thats certainly not to say it doesnt happen, they just seem to be noticeably above average in quality. My dad always used goodyears on his GLHS, but I havent paid much attention to them since then.

Yup, 2 out of 4 tread separated and the replacements are all square. BFG KDWS.... Last set of BFG's I'll ever buy.

iceracer wrote: Tires are prorated as far as warranty goes. With 3/32" tread left, don't expect much.

This^ Also, the prorate goes off suggested retail, and nobody has ever paid suggested retail for a tire.

Just buy whatever tires you want. You'll get no worthwhile satisfaction from the manufacturer.

44Dwarf wrote: Every tire company has or will have this type of failure. Cost cutting by bean counters and make it quicker Kiezen events that don't take in to account everything the gum strip does. After seeing what happened to the auto industry in this country wait until you see the crap we'll get for tires made somewhere else....VERY few tire plants left here in the USA. Buying tires is a crap shoot at best now.

Agreed with an asterisk

• the companies that survive do fix these problems

There was about a year long timespan where Kumho's Ecsta tire became the defacto low profile ZR that every kid had, because they were so cheap. Then for a while it seemed like a week didn't go by without someone reporting the tread delaminating from the sidewall. Kumho owned up pretty well. Although I do know that they refused to honor warranty claims if you came with a Hunter balancer sheet which said your tire is out of round.

I've yet to hear any systematic horror stories about Michelin though. I guess the French still know how to make tires, or at least they enjoy such a reputation that they don't need to cut costs for the sake of making a budget tire.

ALMOST all tire manufacturers have some problems. Michelin seems to still be pretty good, but you pay for it. Never been impreesed with goodyears, most are made out of the country now by the cheapest bidder. Kumhos have been good to me, and my current General exclaims have given me no problems over the last 50k miles. Most tires are made in Korea, India, Indonesia,...where they may pass usa codes but there IS a difference between just passing and being a good tire. As always, you get what you pay for applies to tires, too.

I had 3 Hankooks fail on our Saturn Astra. All 3 had delamination issues. I didn't catch it until I was rotating the tires and found bulges on 2 of them. I put some used ones on to hold us over until I could get some new ones for a couple of months when we had planned on replacing them, and when the remaining pair came off, one of them was having the same issue that caused the replacement of the first failed pair.

I put some Falkens on there and haven't had a single issue out of them, but they're wearing considerably faster than the Hankooks did. At least they're not coming apart.

I guess I live right. In driving more years than I care to count, I have never had a tire failure. Flats from puntures or misuse, yes. This probably covers most tire companies. I have had excellent results with Kumho in recent years.

most people dont realise, there is not one rubber/tire company that doesn't produce some tires in a Chinese plant. Kumho, Hankook, Yokohama, Goodyear, BF, michelin, all of them have production there.

Not just because manufacturing is cheaper, but because their car market has boomed in the last 5 years and its just good business sense.

Also, I dug out the receipt and i'm almost at 50k on these tires... further along than I thought I was...

Pirelli for example, still makes tires in Rome, GA according to their website. (could be truck or forklift tires for all I know) I wonder if the quality and production processes are the same? I don't think it is a Made in China issue, I think it is making them to save every last dime issue.