Ugh, tire trouble. As the sole connection between the road and everything that makes your car capable of car stuff, a bum tire means you aren’t going anywhere. Assuming you regularly cast your peepers upon those precious rubber donuts to anticipate pending tread trouble, odds are when something does go bad, it’s a surprise – and with the worst possible timing, probably.
Today’s Autopian Asks invites you to share your stories about tires gone bad, and I’m sure most of us have had at least one or two experiences with flats or failures. That certainly includes me, especially if we factor in bicycle tires. But if we keep it to cars, there are two tales that stand out for me.
Before getting my brand-new-at-the-time 2012 Mustang GT, I had exclusively driven meagerly powered “regular cars” and was used to tires lasting at least a couple of years, no matter how hard I drove. Not so with the Mustang GT. Though I never performed any smokey burnouts (never had a desire, TBH), I did drive the car like it was meant to be driven, with lusty rows through the gears at every opportunity and – because I live in North Texas – only occasional chances to really feel the car’s handling, mostly brief moments on highway exit and entrance ramps. And so, after maybe six months with the car, I was surprised to discover what looked like paint on the rear tires. White paint, down the centers of the treads. Had I run over freshly-painted lines? No, wait, that’s not paint – those are the cords of the tire carcass. Yikes. I quickly learned how much more expensive fresh low-profile, high-performance rubber is compared to the cheap treads I was used to putting on Civics, Camrys, and Corollas. And I drove more gingerly after that.
The second tire tale is my most recent. Anytime there’s a hailstorm, the roofing guys descend to repair damaged shingles, and roofing nails soon litter the alleys that are the arteries of Texas suburbia. I inevitably pick up one or two during roofing season, which sucks, but I can generally seal the tires. But not my last puncture – it seemed nothing would work. Not the sticky-rubber strip plug, not the sealant I dumped in there after. What a drag. I Slack’d the whole fiasco.
… anyway, I eventually got it sealed up with the third attempt at a strip-type plug. That sucked.
Your turn:
Tell Us About The Last Time You Had Tire Problems
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
I’ve changed countless tires on my Tracker back when I was running a stock size. Those little all seasons would pick up all sorts of crap on the trails, sure was nice having a full size spare hanging off the back. New tires haven’t given me much trouble. Last thing I had was on my Volt, nail went through the tire, deflated while I was at work. Volts don’t come with a spare tire, so I used the dinky little GM inflator, limped it home and patched it with a plug.
We did a combo friend/babymoon trip before my son was born. My wife was maybe 5 months pregnant, and he friend was maybe 6.5 months pregnant. We packed our stuff, and then picked up our friends in my 2002 Dakota pickup in a drizzle. I have a cap on it, so we put all of our stuff in the back, and drove to Smuggler’s Notch to stay in a condo, swim in the pool, play mini-golf, and generally relax for a nice long weekend. The nice thing was, once we got there, we could cook, so there was no need to leave. Packing up on Sunday morning, we find a flat tire on the rear (which wasn’t flat when we arrived). Must have hit a nail. No mechanic shop in town, the truck, which I had just bought, had aftermarket wheels on it, and the factor tire iron didn’t fit. I ended up calling AAA, who told me that because they had to drive through the notch, it would be 4 or 5 hours until they could get there. I ended up walking down to find the maintenance guys for the resort, who had a better jack, along with the right equipment to change the tire. Got the spare on, and drove cautiously home, stopping only to get the right attachment so I’d never be screwed like that again.
I was driving my Protege5 (w/ no anti-lock) on the PA turnpike in the rain when I hit a 4×4 fence post laying in the road. I couldn’t swerve to avoid it (car in the other lane) and I feared spinning out if I slammed on the brakes. It cracked my left front alloy wheel and bent the rear enough that it was slowly losing air. The short little tire iron the car came with wouldn’t loosen my lugs so I was stuck until a kind trooper stopped and helped me with his giant cross tire iron. So I got the donut on and limped to the next exit.
Friends, let me tell you there’s nobody who can help you with 16″ Mazda rims with 50 series tires in Breezewood PA. Or there wasn’t then. One shop had a 15″ wheel in the attic and a used tire that approximated the right overall diameter of the wheel so that went on, and I limped to Monroeville/Pittsburgh.
There I found out that PepBoys had 16″ alloys that would fit my car but they only come in sets of 4. So my broke ass got to put 4 new wheels and 4 new performance tires on Visa.
After that the car was never right again, it would shake at 65 and above and no amount of alignments and wheel balancing made a damn bit of difference. I ended up getting rid of it.
Had a Owner/operator pull into the yard with a trailer we didn’t own (very normal). From across the yard I could tell they hadn’t done their circle check.
The left front outer tire on the trailer wasn’t touching the ground. Some numpty had mounted a low profile tire where an 11R22.5 should have been.
Neither the installer, nor the Owner/Operator noticed. So I flopped on a new used tire of the correct size, and billed the trailer owner.
Thankfully, you can save a lot of time on changing the outer tires on dually setups.
Just drive the inner tire up on to a block of wood, and then pry off the old tire and slip on/air up a new one. Class 8 tires aren’t balanced (there’s a few exceptions, but it’s far from common) so you can just slam a new tire on and save yourself a re-torque down the road.
Had a tire blow a couple of years ago, it was completely shredded. I had to get it towed, and when I called the shop, I asked the guy if they could just patch it, as a joke. He didn’t laugh, but I thought I was funny.
One weekend we had to travel as a family to a wedding, so my daughter drove home from college and we immediately hit the road. She also had to run back to school as soon as we got home. So I couldn’t deal with the very slow leak in her tire. But since it was a slow leak, so I added a little extra air and sent her on her way.
While at school, the leak got worse and she ended up with an almost flat tire. I had her drive very slowly to a gas station and enough air to last a two hour drive home. How fast could the leak be? Darn near flat when she got home. Also, now a lug nut was missing (I use a torque wrench, I swear). I rolled the car into the garage, put on the spare, and put it back in the driveway. As I was contemplating when I could get to the Honda dealer to buy a lug nut, I kicked something, which turned out to be the lug nut. Somehow it clung to the car all the way home and fell off in my driveway.
Thankfully the tire was patchable and (gratuitous sponsor plug) due to the Vredestein’s excellent construction, are no worse for wear.
Went out to work on the house, as the wife and daughter loaded up the van (which had gotten new tires all around less than 2 weeks prior) for a trip to town. I looked and said “oh, you have a flat.” the left rear was all the way down. they took my car, I tried to air up the tire but no dice. I put on the temporary, which was made interesting by the fact that despite having 2 jacks, I only have one *handle* for the jack. Eventually was able to drive to discount tire and they fixed the hole. It was a large screw/bolt with 2 copper washers on it (weird!). Later that day, went to move the van and the TPMS for that tire was on. I air it up, take it back to discount tire and they find that there was another hole without anything in it *less than 1″ away* from the one they just plugged! Anyway, they couldn’t put two repairs that close together so they replaced the tire. at least all that work was free, but that’s most of a Saturday I’ll never see again.
This is not a tire “problem” as much as it was a close call.
I drive a 3rd gen Tacoma, that I lifted and put on 33″ all terrains, I did that about 1k miles ago and so I have not found a place for the spare. Anyways, I loaded it up with cardboard to get it recycled, and naturally there was a ton of glass shards scattered around the bins, fortunately I have a ton of tread on my tires, but if the shards were bigger or I didn’t have brand new tires, I may have had a puncture.
Had a puncture in a heavy rainstorm driving a rental car in the west of Ireland in the area of the “burren” where the sides of the road are just rock walls. Pulled into the nearest driveway and the homeowner very kindly came out and helped me change the tire to the spare (I love the Irish!) and directed me where to go to get a new tire. The tire shop guy said “left front? it’s always the left front…” And then he looked at the punctured tire– on this rental car with over 40,000 km on it “yup, this one you punctured was almost new itself.” 20 minutes and €95 later, we were back on the road. “Don’t say a word to the rental car company” he said. “You just bought ’em another new tire.”
1st : Always carry a plug kit. They are 1000% better than any can of slime, and they last. The last plug I did lasted the remainder of the tire life, like 20k miles.
2nd : I’ve had 2 cars this Winter that had to have a tire unmounted and remounted to get the bead cleaned because of a (not so) slow leak. Hella annoying.
3rd : My most annoying tire fiasco was almost exactly 22 years ago. I won a March madness office pool. Big win! $200. 2 hours later a pothole outside a HomeDepot tore a 1 inch hole in the sidewall of my tire. That repair bill? A couple bucks over $200.
That was the only time I’ve won an office pool.
Right after I bought my GR-C from the PO, like a week later, I apparently ran over something and it developed a slow leak. I saw it coming out of a Target before work. Maybe 4 miles down the road to a local garage it was already past the point of no return.
Luckily the PO had engineered a way to fit a temp spare from another car, I forget the model, but the garage mounted that up for me. They couldn’t find an RE-71 within more than a few days, I would have been stranded.
Got a new tire from Tirerack, with like 2 days from the first autocross with the car. SCCA member that worked at TireDiscounter mounted it no charge with a day to spare. Hurray.
I park in a gravel parking lot with trees growing over it at the machine shop I work at. That damn place has punctured so many of my tires it isn’t funny. The last time it happened the mechanics found a chunk of metal stuck in the tread. I’ve had sidewall punctures, tread punctures…9 times out of ten when I get new tires it’s because one got a gash in it.
I’ve had more tires damaged beyond repair by incompetent tire techs over the last decade than by road debris.
The last bit of tire trouble I had was patching a series of nail punctures due to a house being built down the road a ways. I think it was three over the course of a year. Not a big deal with Costco and Discount doing free patching but still annoying to deal with.
I had Michelins with 14K on them but 5 years old on my X3 and the move from San Diego to Tucson resulted in the discovery that every construction truck must be throwing down screws and nails like rain. I got 3 punctures in the same damn tire within 3 months and the 3rd took it out. Having no spare (thanks BMW) I had to pay for a set of 4 new tires. Mostly its that Tucson roads are complete crap and the amount of debris is something I’ve never seen. Tire insurance was thankfully my friend to cover 1 of the 4 with Discount Tire.
Last time I had a puncture was a couple years ago when I somehow managed to pick up a 3/8″ shoulder bolt in the back right tire of my Camaro. I just used a plug kit and fixed it and it held until I got new tires a few months later.
My last car was just a few months old and I took it in for the first oil change and the tire pressure light lit on my way to the dealership so I asked if they could check it while doing the oil change and tire rotation anyways. When I picked it up they said they topped off the air pressure, I asked if there was a leak and they said they couldn’t be sure. Logically I asked if they couldn’t dunk it in a bucket of water to look for bubbles and was told “we don’t have a bucket at this location”. I guess that sort of technology is only reserved for the flagship dealerships so I went to Discount Tire instead.
I used my wife’s car to drive my son to baseball practice a few weeks ago. The TPMS light was on but we were in the middle of a cold snap so I thought nothing of it. While I was waiting in the parking lot, I got out of the car and noticed the rear tire was super low. On the way home I pumped the tire to 40psi and stopped at Advance Auto for a plug kit. Got home, called my older son out to witness his dad fix a flat. I absolutely failed. I put the donut on and dropped the wheel/tire at Mavis for a $30 plug. At least the older one learned how to change a tire.
My most recent tire fiasco was on my recently purchased 1979 Ford Fairmont which had been parked and not moved in 7 years before I bought it. The previous owner put 13″ wire lowrider wheels on it, and those wheels are held onto the car with knock-off spinners which thread onto wheel adapters which are held on with the factory lug nuts.
When I bought the car, 3 of the tires were flat but I was able to inflate them just long enough to roll the car onto the trailer, then they went flat again. Once I got the car home, I tried my best to get the knock-off off with the literal lead hammer that was given to me, but they were stuck.
I eventually had to buy a special tool to get the knock-offs off, and even then I had to use a jackstand and a jack handle as extra leverage to remove them. Thankfully I was able to get a few hundred bucks for the wheels once I cleaned them up.
Probably 6-7 years ago now, I bought an Elantra Touring, that after an independent inspection, seemed legit. Brought it back home, everything seemed fine. Just needed to wait a few days to get my ass over to the DMV for registration fun, etc.
By that day, two of the tires were flat, the check engine light was on, and the stability control light was stuck on. The seller, disappeared. Two weeks later, both rear calipers seized. As for the tires, I ended up replacing the entire set.
Luckily I was equipped to deal with these shenanigans (though obviously, regretted the purchase) but this is why I’m often willing to go to bat for cheap new cars.
My wife once put her Sorento too close to a sidewalk sewer drain and cut a 9″ gash down the sidewall. Better yet, we were scheduled to drive 1000 miles that weekend.
Despite working for a tire company, I can’t get new tires that fast. Ended up buying a pair of used Michelins off craigslist and a full set of tires when we returned home.
I also have a habit of picking up a puncture RIGHT AFTER I GET NEW TIRES. I got a 1/4″ rivet in a brand new 275/40/19 tire on the drive home from the shop. Another tire got a finishing nail 500 miles into it’s life. I punctured the rear tire on a motorcycle on my first ride and before the tires had even gotten sticky.
Bad luck all around.
But fuck subcontractors who use their 2005 Dodge Ram pickup bed as a dumpster. I have literally seen nails and screws flying out of trucks like this, they should be ticketed for littering at the very least…
Yeah that’s horseshit.
This reminds me that when I bought my SX4, literally two days later I picked up a screw which of course landed in a non patchable spot. I wasn’t willing to have mismatched tires on a two day old car, so I ponied up for a new Bridgestone Turanza, lol.
Oooof! $$$$$$
I was taking a PLCC programming class after work at a community college about 45 miles from home, and it was summer, so I rode my BMW R1200RT. After the class, I walked out to my bike that was facing away from the building lights, and saw that my rear tire had a shiny line down the middle of it. Upon closer inspection, I found the metal cords were what I was seeing. I road home just a bit slower that night, and new tires were purchased the next day. Other than that, I haven’t had any tire troubles in a lot of years. In fact, I don’t carry a spare in my TR6, which I’ve had for 11 years.
My tpms were just replaced 2 week ago (under warranty)
On my 3rd set of Goodyear Duratracs that have uneven lug wear (like neighboring lugs have worn to different heights)
Got a nail hole about 10 years ago and the JK has a full sizes spare.
Tires are SO much better now than 30+ years ago when in the late 80s early 90s I needed a new tire from a flat about once a year.
Two years ago I was driving the Si at night on a blacktop road and nailed an unseen pothole dead on with my passenger front tire. It went flat almost immediately as I cut a gash in the sidewall.
I’m usually pretty good at spotting them, but the combination of black road surface and no street side lighting made it invisible. Had to source a replacement tire and get the swapped at a local shop.
For any of my personal vehicles not for a while (knock on wood). I normally try and have them replaced when they are starting to rot or losing tread/traction. Vehicles at work since I deal with crappy semi’s with crap tires I deal with issues pretty often and they will need repairs or replacements.