Tire Failure (Not Vette)
 

Wife had a blowout on her Highlander yesterday with a 3 year old Continental Contact tire while out of town yesterday. Fortunately no damage to her, car or wheel. Road service guy said it looked rotten but not sure what he means by that and I haven't seen the tire in person yet. He also commented that he has changed a lot of Continental tires lately.

Been fortunate to have had very few catastrophic tire failures in my 66 years. And I don't know that I've seen one fail like this before - completely across the contact surface. Time to try another manufacturer.

So much for the six year rule, eh?:D

You know, "for the children", "for peace of mind".

[QUOTE=MikeM;1596349980]So much for the six year rule, eh?:D
QUOTE]

Definitely. If she thinks she can limp back here on the spare (full size Toyo) and lower speed secondary roads I'm going to get all of them replaced with something else.

I've had a similar appearing failure on the OEM Michelins on my STS, TWICE. Incidentally, I replaced them with Conti's and never had a problem again.

Nasty looking failure. I’m glad your wife is okay! Could have been much worse, I’m sure. :thumbs:Dave

have had 3 blowouts over the years, all were firestones on the company vehicle. at interstate speeds they can be a bit scary.

Get the tire and read the embossed date code required on all tires. It's the date of manufacture. It's a 4 digit code. The first two numbers are the week of the year, the second two numbers are the year. For example, "2216" would be the 22nd week of 2016.

The reason this is important is (you should always insist that you see the dates on tires put on your car or truck) that tires can sit in warehouses or store shelves for a few days or months or even years. The clock is ticking based on these dates, not the date they were installed.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...21d27ac45f.png

How long does the clock tick before the tires are considered rejects based on some manufacturing date dreamed up by someone sitting in the office?

Based on scientific evidence, I might add.

I have been told 6 years....

Bill

See post #1.

Where is the scientific evidence?????????????

Have you ever heard of chuckhole damage on low profile tires.

Great picture Randy, thanks for posting it.

Small retailers are more likely to have older tires in stock than the major chains, especially in less common sizes. Just because they tend to move less volume. That's why it's always important for us as customers to pay close attention to the dates on any new tires we buy.

Good luck... GUSTO

Hysterical mob rule prevails it seems.:D

The date! The date! Get the date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:D

Oh, that's not a blowout;)
This is a BLOWOUT. Happened in my wife's '62, 70 mph on I65 north of Mobile AL. Amazingly no body damage.

Dan,
Good to hear the bride and car survived unscathed. That picture looks like she may have inadvertently hit something in the road. Looks like it has been slashed across the entire face of the tread. Lots of junk on the roads today. Just a thought before we all start crucifying the tire company.:thumbs:

OK - that beats ours.

She said it blew out on the interstate within sight of her exit and she didn't seem to think she ran over anything. But that is a really hard to understand failure pattern for me. She may have and didn't realize it. A split right across the thread belts is just hard to fathom. The tires looked good (I hand wash our cars), rode well, held air fine and had good thread left although we noticed in the last few months that traction was down due to the rubber getting hard we assume.

Don't jump to conclusions :) Wait for the date.

The date. The date. Get the date!!!!!!!!!!!!! That tiype of tire failure doesn't look like anything to do with a DATE!
It looks more to do with impact damage. You would be the one jumping to conclusions if you think date has anything to do with this failure.

Especially since the OP said the car rode smooth and the tires were round as ID'd by hand washing.

Now, if those steel belts were rusty and rotten at the break point, different story and that could have been cause by porous rubber, not time.

:lurk::D

I agree on what that tire looks like, I still want the date. :crazy:

If you get the date, what are you going to do with that little tidbit of information?:D

The Firestone stuff that made headlines weren't old tires so what's up Sam Snead?

Just part of the equation. :yesnod: