I was on the highway today, when all of a sudden, bam!!! It felt like a blowout, but the rear end started swinging around, and it felt like I was hydroplaning - this was at 70mph, on the interstate. Luckily it was pretty early, and I was halfway between Cincinnati, and Louisville, so not much traffic - but there was one guy behind me and I think I might have caused him to drop a load!

I get the car pulled over, and get out to check the damage - the best way of describing the rear wheel well, it that it was mangled. Then I noticed that the tire wasn't flat - it was missing all of it's tread! The rear felt like I was hydroplaning because the rear drivers tire had no tread and I was running on the steel!

I went back and found the tread, I large piece, that did not come off quietly.

Luckily, I was only 1/2 mile from an exit, and going slowly I was able to limp down the shoulder to the exit, and as luck would have it, there was a tire shop just off the exit.

I baught the car a year and a half ago, and the tires (BFG Radial T/As) had plenty of tread, and there was absolutly nothing to show the age of these tires - looking at them you would probably guess that they were maybe a year or two old - the date code on the tires '517' says they were from 1997 - 12 years old.

There was absolutly nothing wrong with these tires, other than their age. The manager checked all of the tires (assuming a claim would be filed) - the rears both had 5/32" and the fronts 7/32. All of the tires where about 29.5 lbs pressure. There had been no repairs, and there was no other damage to the tires.

So, anyone out there who does not know the providence of their tires - you might want to check and see how old they are.

I was told that that is why Michelin change their warrany to 6 year in 2006 - I dont know how long the warranty was for in 1997 - does anyone know?

I'm going to talk to someone from Michelins liabililty dept on Monday. I just baught 4 new tires (BFG's) and I don't have a problem with that - but I'm thinking of asking for Michelin to pay my deductible for the damage to the car - my insurance should fix that damage, but I have a $1K deductible.

Does that sound resonable? I can understand them not replacing the tires if the warranty was expired - but I don't believe that the warrany being expired means that they should not be held liable when their product fails, and when it does, it does extensive damage to my car!

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow - it looks a lot better since I used some polishing compound to get off most of the rubber that was was smushed into the fender, and the drivers side door.

 

good luck. You will probably spend more money and time screwing with this than its worth. Does the car owner have the responsibility to check the age of their tires? At what age is the tire considered unsafe? 5 years? 10 years? 30 years?

 

I posted a thread 6 months to a year ago that was written about tire age and the dangers.

I recall that there are no guarantees after 6 years or so. If I can find the article I will repost, but you will find your 12 year old tires are way beyond what any manufacturer will stand by.

Good Luck!

Be glad your safe and be happy your car is not too trashed....

Rd

 

You're lucky you didn't lose the whole quarter panel

 

Here is the link to the news story.

The old thread was "Tires and Shelf Life"

Be Safe

Rd

 

Why are you going to call Michelin if the tires were BFG?

 

Because in 1988 Michelin baught the tire business from BFGoodrich - the Goodrich corporation company still exits, but the tire business, and the rights to the BFGoodrich name was purchased by Michelin.

 

If you get to the corp. legal dept. I think you will find you have some accountability in this and the tires on the car were "dangerously" beyond their service life. I guess we'll see what happens. Please keep us posted.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897
I posted this a year ago. I think the epa have banned some chemicals in tires that have caused this.