Wild tire problem from another forum

[sxg6]

I came across this while browsing another forum I visit. Any thoughts from the experts on what would cause this to happen?

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.ph...ba7f22cc59&

 

[stephen9666]

The tires are original on a 2004. They're pushing 10 years old, so I guess that's not too much of a surprise.

 

[sxg6]

True, the tires are a bit old. I guess I'm just surprised that age alone could cause that type of failure, I wonder if anything else contributed

 

[Drew99GT]

Probably a combination of age, dry rot, and low air pressure. Yikes!

 

[Texan4Life]

I have seen this a few times and have had it happen to me before. its old age/dry rot.

 

[Colt45ws]

Yup. This is why I dont even like to mount tires that are >10 years old, let alone ride on some.
These ones are not quite there, but in the range where I would be careful with them. I certainly wouldnt use them to test the speed capability of a vehicle. Not that Im saying that is what happened here, but you get the picture, I think.

 

[hattaresguy]

Its dry rot, the tires are to old.

I won't used a tire older than 5 years, I don't care if it was on a collector car and only has 1k miles on it.


Spares are what gets you since they tend to age out. I replace them at 10 years. Cheap insurance on that rainy night 100 miles from home.

 

[johnsmellsalot]

I work at a tire shop. Usually old age.

 

[yonyon]

Old age is a possibility, but it should have been noisy for a while before coming apart. Extended riding with an impact break (sidewall bubble) could certainly do that also and without making warning noises.

 

[rpn453]

It may have even been defective from the start. It would only get worse with age.

Low speed rating is a contributing factor. If I've read Capriracer's posts properly, this wouldn't happen with an H-rated or better tire.

 

[SS1970chrysler]

Old age and sitting, especially out in the sun will lead to that. Usually chews up the side of the car as well.

Not long before it happens, the tire will go out-of-round and you'll see a separation starting around the tire.

 

[CapriRacer]

This is a 2004 GMC Envoy with 28K miles. My first thought is that this is pretty low miles given the age - less than 4K a year. Tires that don't move much aren't as well protected from oxygen and ozone degradation, because the antioxidants aren't allowed to migrate to the surface of the rubber.

So at the very least we can say "dry rot" - but I actually do not like the word.

This is a "belt leaving belt separation." There are a lot of things that can be the cause - and "old" is one of them. But the source could be something else. We would need to look more closely to see what we can see.

"Defect"? No, too many miles. "Defects" show up almost immediately - and they rarely result in a belt leaving belt separation - which is a durability issue.

But given that the tire has not been driven on much - I'm going to take a stab that underinflation is involved. This is before the advent of TPMS's.

 

[ChrisW]

Tire gnomes?