Gislaved Nordfrost 5 Tire Failures

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What shape are the alloy wheels on the car?

I'll go a different route - the alloy wheels are corroded and have slow leaks. Your daughter does not notice the slow leaks until it's too late.

It does not take too many miles on a flat tire to shread it to nothing.
 
The wheels are in good shape and none leak any faster than any of the other, which is to say not much at all. I just checked the pressure in those tires about 3 days prior to the last failure and all were down about 1 or 2 PSI before I filled them up. I check tire pressure pretty frequently on all my cars it's one of my "things".

Originally Posted By: Miller88
What shape are the alloy wheels on the car?

I'll go a different route - the alloy wheels are corroded and have slow leaks. Your daughter does not notice the slow leaks until it's too late.

It does not take too many miles on a flat tire to shread it to nothing.
 
If she was traveling up I-43, that highway is always in poor shape from Sheboygan to Denmark. It's very possible that she hit some type of debris in that case, and wouldn't even have known. My SIL travels up from Tosa to Door County with us and she always complains about the highway's condition. It seems they have been "repairing" it for the last 25 years.

I don't have any useful info on the other two failures.
 
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Yeah it was I-43 just south of the Harrington Beach exit (we do have beaches in WI, just very cold ones). Not as far north as Sheboygan and the road seemed fine in the area.

Who knows, I'm about done trying to figure it out. These tires do have only one ply in the sidewall as opposed to two in the summer tires. While she was away to school this past year my wife and/or I drove it all winter with no failure so it very well could have been something she did. The car is by far the best in snow with those tires.

Originally Posted By: threeputtpar
If she was traveling up I-43, that highway is always in poor shape from Sheboygan to Denmark. It's very possible that she hit some type of debris in that case, and wouldn't even have known. My SIL travels up from Tosa to Door County with us and she always complains about the highway's condition. It seems they have been "repairing" it for the last 25 years.

I don't have any useful info on the other two failures.
 
She needs good snow tires on that car. Do the right thing (I know that you will) and get her another set, but look carefully at the Blizzaks and the Nokians. I have had great results (traction/performance) with both when I lived in Vermont and in Colorado.

I don't know the construction of the Nokian Hakkapeliittas, but I lived on a dirt road in Vermont, and it was very hard on tires. The Hakkas never had a failure, through 4 winters on that road and in driving on Vermont roads (generally rough) as well as the roads in NYC (also rough).
 
FYI just for those who like pictures, here are the two shredded failures. I don't have a picture of the one that just went flat.

The reason the one is lopsided/flat on one side is because it happened in winter and the tire was cold.



 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
FYI just for those who like pictures, here are the two shredded failures. I don't have a picture of the one that just went flat.

The reason the one is lopsided/flat on one side is because it happened in winter and the tire was cold......


I deleted the photos to save space.

But those are indeed run flats. I guess it's just one of those things. Hopefully you will now be on the good side of the statistics (but that's really not the way it works!)
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
On my BMW I have Gislaved Nordfrost 5 winter tires. I have had them for three winters now and they are the best thing in the snow I have ever seen. However, in those three winters I have had three failures of the tires. //

What could cause this type of failure? I can post pictures later but essentially the entire outside sidewall is shredded and she was slithering around on the rim.
Is the stock tire size on your car 225/50-17?

I had Nokian WRG2's in size 225/45R17 on my WRX and punctured the sidewalls on three.

Also have dedicated snows in size 205/55R16. They are almost identical in rolling diameter, but have a much taller sidewall. No problems with those in three winters.

Also hit a pothole in a construction zone so hard that I cracked the rim on a BBS alloy wheel. I've since switched to the BBS 10 spoke forged rally wheels available for Subaru, which are both lighter and stronger.
 
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