In 1981, I had a GoodYear American Eagle whitewall fail in a spectacular fashion on my '66 Dodge on I-5, south of Seattle. The whole tread separated from the carcass and rolled past me, NA$CAR-style, into the center lane (I was in the inside lane!), but the carcass remained intact and did not deflate. These were steel-belted radials on the '66, and were maybe two years old. It took me over fifteen years before I bought another GoodYear tire. When I went to the tire store to get the tire replaced, the dealer found a problem with each of the other three tires (my spare was a different brand), and warrantied the set. Once they were ready for replacement, I went with a set of Dunlops that lasted for a dozen years and 62K miles! Anyone ever have a tire blow while the car was sitting still? That happened to me at least three times over the years; all were "maypops" that were used solely for rollers to move a car around the property or the shop, or to load a car on a trailer. And all were VERY weather-worn, cracked, and hard. A tire that would never, EVER see a road again. So, even cheapo rollers have the opportunity to be dangerous.
I took in a 47 Dodge pickup and was measuring ride height for future reference. I checked tire pressure before measuring and found one at 20 lbs (radial) and so I put 32 in it. After measuring ride height and getting the truck on jackstands I removed the tires and set them against the wall. within 2 minutes there was a seriously loud bang as the tire that had been raised from 20 psi to 32 psi exploded about two feet behind me. I jumped a bit but the cat bout pissed his fur.
In the past month or so I had to replace the Goodyears on my truck worn out at 28k...my niece had Michelins on her Equinox and they were dry rotted..I just bought new tires for my 47 - I've replaced the newer cars with Coopers. I'm learning about tread wear ratings. I had a buddy have a new Michelin blow up under his front fender, did quite a bit of damage. They apparently were sitting around for sometime...beyond their shelf life.
About 10 years ago, I was with some other people on the way to the Route 66 show in San Berdoo, and the wagon I was riding in blew a tire on the 60 fwy, which caused the driver to panic and lose control. The wagon first shot off towards the center divider and the driver (a woman) panicked, turned the wheel to the right which caused the car to the opposite way and rolled down a embankment. I was in the back seat and didn't have my seatbelt but my 2 year old nephew was next to me so I held onto his car seat. The bad thing was my 11 year old son was asleep in the cargo area and when the car stopped rolling, I got out and found him under the car, and even though he broke his leg and had to be in a body cast for 2 months, thank god that he lived through it. I had nightmares for years after.
Yup. Radial wide whitewalls (Broadway classics IIRC?) Maybe 9-10 years old... i forget. Opened the garage for the first time in months and the tread had peeled off. Tire was still inflated.
That was very common in the mid and late 70's, the tire shop I managed had a nick name for them "B.F.Garbage" after the large number of adjustments we did on them because of separations.We had almost zero failures with the Pos-A Traction tires.
You need to take that 'six year rule' with a large grain of salt. That came out of the Ford Explorer/Firestone debacle, and in the wake of all the finger-pointing, the feds and several manufacturers did some testing. As far as how they tested, it's fairly accurate. But what they didn't tell you is the test was done in Phoenix Arizona, the US city with the most number of sunny days and the highest daily average temperature; in other words, the worst-case. A full reading of the report would also reveal that the rate of degradation is exponential; reduce the temp slightly, and the rate would fall off sharply. Further reading of some of the footnoted reports referenced showed that the DOT was unable to find any verifiable instances of 'old' tires being a sole documented cause of any accidents. While you'll hear lots of antidotal stories like this one, the fact remains that even after all this testing was done, they still couldn't conclude that tire age was a sole factor in tire failures. Now, I'm not advocating that you ignore the age of your tires. If you live in the sunbelt and your tires are exposed to the 'normal' environmental conditions there, the 'six year' number is probably fairly accurate. But if you live in a more temperate climate, your tires will last longer. How much longer is a matter of judgment and entirely up to you; personally, anything over 15 years old where I live (the Pacific NW) would be suspect, but that's me. I have had tires fail from apparent age, but they've been well over 15 years old and looked it. The one clear thing that came out of all these reports is that underinflation is the number one cause of tire failure and the speculation that 'aged' tires were less able to tolerate that. Also keep in mind that this 'rule' isn't anything official; this has been adopted by some tire and car makers, with some going for 10 years, some saying nothing. They do, after all, have a vested interest in selling you tires while avoiding liability for failed product. The DOT has remained silent, simply urging motorists to carefully monitor their tires.
Another heads up on this subject. My pickup started pulling real hard to the right out of the blue. It stays parked most of the time. I started fooling with the alignment and toe and such till I looked at the left front tire. A belt had separated. A separated belt may make the wheel feel unbalanced..which what usually happens but as I found out it can make your vehicle pull one way or another. In the case of my pick up , I only use it to pull to the track or get big things..uses lots of fuel, The tires got old and weirded out sitting still.
I got caught by a seperated belt, wife daily '06 trailblazer was on its second set of tires at 86K, started vibrating the front. I tok a look at the tires, no visual issues. Bought new front hubs as its a known issue with trailblazers. Had all the parts and tols layed out, tok off the wheels and as I was rolling the removed tires across the floor, it wobbled left. The tread was raised up and seperated, couldn't see it, but you could feel it. Those tires we're 2 years old from purchase but out of warranty due to age of the tire, the tire store wouldn't warranty.
The last exploding tyre I saw was helped along by an IED, the wheel itself ended up over one hundred meters away. I like delamination of cheap road car tyres better! Doc.
I am thinking about putting bias ply tires back on the 55 but will need to drive a car with them before I decide to buy.
I had a set of the original Radial TAs on a 69 Corvette. They were 2 years old when the right rear blew on an icy road causing the car to slide sideways. I turned into the skid and might have been able to save it but I was close to where a bridge crossed over the road. I saw that the drivers door would hit a concrete pillar and turned the wheel to the right. The car turned and backed into the pillar putting the right rear bumper almost into the dashboard. The guy following me opened the door expecting to find me dead but I handed him the steering wheel. I had a cut in the back of my head from the rear window and I was pretty stiff for a few days. B F Goodrich paid for everything. My ex wife had a car with Firestone radial 500s that would break belts and start to wobble. After the second one, I got them to replace the other 3. It could be worse. They had trouble with tires in a Formula One race where the tread would fly off of the left rear tires.
Once upon a time I put helium in my bicycle tires. When I turned to get the gauge the gauge to check the pressure it rose up and floated off, never to be seen again. I still think about it. It was a Schwinn, a real nice bike. I used to look up in the trees for it but never found it.
I had this happen 2 weeks ago in my OT Daily driver Dodge SRT-4 tooling along at 80MPH on the Dan Ryan Expressway, the right rear lost its carcass completely, all that was left on the wheel was a 2" ring of sidewall on each side of the wheel, luckily I was able to get over from the left lane to the right shoulder and behind a retaining wall to swap it out, and it didn't damage the fender or the wheel. Tire was only 2 years and 25K miles old as well.
Ive seen the belts break and tread come off a lot on radial tires. The only Bias that I ever seen do that was a retread. Ive got 8.25 X 20 bias tires that are over 40 years old on a 66 F 600. Still doing their job. I had a brand new yokahama 22.5 tire come apart on a loaded semi trailer on a hot summer day. I was doing 60 MPH when it came unglued. By the time I got stopped It tore up the taillights and Mud flap. Had a string of radial tire failures on that trailer. We installed a set of new bias ply trailer tires and never had one go bad. We ran them until they became almost bald . We then regrooved them and wore them down to the cords.
An excellent reason to use bias trailer tires on nearly ALL trailers! I've owned my car hauler trailer for thirteen years and over 100K miles, and never had a tire failure with it. I'm on a second set of 700-15 8-ply bias trailer tires - the first lasted nearly nine years.
Yes I run bias ply on all my personal trailers. some are decades old. Many are not even trailer tires there 6 & 8 ply truck tires. Im of the opinion a trailer pulls & preforms better with bias ply tires. The Semi I used to drive when the radial trailer tires started giving trouble the boss sent me to the tire shop and told me to get a complete set of new tires. The office called ahead and arranged payment. They had 8 radials waiting when I showed up. I told them I didnt want radials. So they installed 8 new kelly bias trailer tires. When the boss found out he had a fit. We argued and he stated they wouldnt last 100,000 miles. they became worn down at 175,000 miles and we regrooved them and ran another 50,000. He then sent me to get another new set of bias ply,s.. I drive a OT 84 ford ranger PK. I have a set of 8 ply rated bias trailer tires on it. They stated on the sidewall for trailer use only. I took a electric sander and sanded that off. They do a pretty good job I dont drive it above 60 mph. I went to springfield mo loaded with 1000 pound,s of scrap. aluminum wheels and copper aluminum fin radiators. 300 mile round trip on a hot 100 + degree day. Just the kind of trip that would cause a radial to fail.
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