anyone ever seen a new tire sidewall peel?

this is a brand new set of cooper cobras I ordered from tire rack. mounted on may 1 and all the blue lettering scrubbed off. drove the car a few times over the last month. yesterday I was cleaning it and I noticed what looked like blue lettering on the tire. similar to how the white letters are blue when brand new. i scrapped it a little with my finger nail and noticed the word "LO" is written in blue under what almost seems like a thin layer of rubber that is peeling off? i know the tires were nice and clean when i mounted them and I do not remember seeing this the last time i cleaned the wheels/tires, but it was probably 2 weeks ago. I looked back and the only pic I have of the car showing that tire is from 5/15. def no blue showing, cant tell if there is any peeling or not too far away.

I took a close up pic, you can see the O where i scrapped off the rubber, and above it you can see the wrinkle look, thats what the sidewall looked like and i scrapped it off with my fingernail exposing the blue writing.



I have an email into tire rack customer service to see what they say about it.

 

I bet the wrinkled stuff is tire black dressing. As to what the LO refers to, I've no clue. Seems to me like someone installed a tire that was maybe rejected for some reason and tried to cover it up.

 

no its def not tire dressing. I installed the tires and scrubbed them myself when they were new. the LO was 100% not visible until yesterday. its almost like the tire was painted and the paint is peeling. which makes no sense

 

Dupli-Color makes a black tire paint...
But why would Tire Rack use it?

 

looks like porosity..
get a replacement. that would drive me nuts. looks like a factory defect mark and repair?
highly recommend high speed forced balancing

 

Called tire rack and sent them pics. Said they are going to replace the tire. They too have no idea what it is. I took another pic for them. This is what is coming off the tire




sure looks like paint

 

Good outcome!

It also looks like a cut on your finger with the great 'grease antiseptic' that all of us gearheads use.

 

In my vocab, tire dressing is a black paint type material to deepen the black of tires and make them look newer than they really are – a used car salesman's trick. Your photo of the flakes on your finger pretty much confirm it.

 

ok I was thinking you meant like tire shine/armor all.

no idea why this would be on a new tire. Tire rack rep didn’t know either. Already got my confirmation email the new tire shipped

 

Possibly a tire that shouldn’t have been shipped out was incorrectly shipped out by accident. Or somebody is playing games sadly. The fact that it was covered up suggested the second. Seems to be the way of the world lately!! Ike

 

Maybe a new hire kid working in the warehouse thought it was easier to paint a blemished tire and help to meet his quota on a Friday afternoon, so he could spend the weekend with his boyfriend at the drag show in Vegas.
😂

 

What is with the homophobic comment? There is no place for that kind of thing on this site not to mention you simply “made up” some kind of scenario in you head.
I don’t know if you are a REAL marine or just in fact a true jarhead? Either way you should be ashamed of yourself.