I have a 04 xA and have 19,300 miles on my stock tires. I didnt rotate them for 15,000 and thats the biggest mistake. The tires were pretty low and at 110mph the sidewall ripped in the fastlane. Luckily i got into the emergency lane safely. If anyone is local to the bay area it was on N 680 by the Treat Blvd exit.
ROTATE THE TIRES ON SCHEDULE!

 

and....... dont go 110 mph or ride with underinflated tires.

 

110 mph? Please tell me that's an exaggeration. Sure, proper maintenance would have gone a long way toward preventing your "accident," but the only thing that saved your life in this case is that you got lucky. Plain and simple. So thanks for the warning about tire maintenance, but I'm much happier to see that you survived that blowout than I am about knowing the importance of rotating and inflating my tires.

 

no exaggeration. i was in a hurry to get to work and ended up being late because of it. I just cant believe that the tires only lasted this long. I even had other rims on for few thousand so these tires maybe had 15K on them before they got near bald. Ill take a pic in the morning because i think the sidewall construction was junk on stock tires.

 

What brand? There are several different ones used from the factory.

Walt

 

I don't think the stock tires are rated for that kind of speed. Apparently, you were abusing them, and they broke. Complaining about them doesn't change that.

 

Do you mean the tread was worn down or the tire was low on air?

Usually, when a sidewall blows, it's because it gets overheated due to underinflation. In your case, it could have been a combination of factors.

Glad to hear you and no one around was injured. Sad to hear that you were driving that fast and endangered not only your life, but others around you as well.

 

Illustrated a common ignorance. Now he knows better.


Lookie: Rotation is not important to tire safety. It's a means by which to get the longest service life from a set of tires. Treads wear away in time, quicker on the front than on the rear. That is all. Tardy rotation did not cause this sidewall blowout.


Sidewalls flex a great deal. This makes HEAT. Too much heat will decompose the bonding of the tire components. Catastrophic failure results.

The faster the tire turns, the more heat is generated.

The lower the tire pressure, the more flexure occurs to the sidewalls. The more flexure, the more heat.

High speed running is safer on overinflated tires. 30PSI may be profitably increased up to the tire's nominal inflation limit. The pressure will go higher yet at sustained high speed. That's OK as a general rule.


-To increase the load capacity of any tire we need only add more air pressure

This is how your undersized compact spare works. 60PSI provides the stiffness, and hence, the the load capacity, to carry the car safely. Rough riding, yes, but safe.

I may make a primer for this thread, about early tires and how and why their inflations differed from passenger car tires today. It's all pretty interesting and does not require a lot of reading or smarts to understand these vital basics.

Inflation matters. Rotation is unimportant.

 

Well said SciFly. I would like to hear more on this topic from you.