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
Mine is a case of me being stupid and getting away with it. I was pulling into a dark parking lot at the pet store on my way home and hit a curb. Parked, bought dog food, got back in car, TPMS light is on. Tired brain, “just drive home; it’s only a couple of kilometers”. And yes friends, I drove home on a flat tire. Lucky for me there was no wheel damage.
Kudos to Mazda Roadside Assistance that got someone out to me within an hour to put the spare on (I have a bad back and can’t physically change my own tire). My punishment was driving around on a donut tire for three days while I waited on a new tire to come in. Also spending a stupid amount of $$ on a new tire because everything car related is more expensive in Canada (except new Mazdas).
I live 2 miles down a highly trafficked and rough gravel road. I get tire punctures so often that I plug my tires at least 2 times a month. My wife usually takes her car into town to the tire shop to get repaired. When she shows up, they just tell her to pull into “your” bay. Sometimes I swear farmers around here dump boxes of nails into the back of their flatbed trucks before driving down the road…
Had a tire blow out while on the freeway. Not complete blowout so the rim was still usable after I pulled over and swapped the donut on, but it was perfectly fine earlier and just going down the freeway all of a sudden it felt like it was pulling that way real hard so I pulled over and there ya go, flatsville. Luckily the rain we’d been having for days on either side of the incident decided to hold off for the few hours around that so I wasn’t stuck changing the tire on the side of the road in the rain, it was just wet on the ground.
The last time I had a flat, I had two. I was driving to a friend’s house about 65 miles (100ish km) from mine. Traffic was heavy but moving pretty well. About 1/4 of the way there a board was laying in my lane, but due to traffic conditions I could not avoid running over it. I ran it over with both tires on the driver side of the car and thought to myself, “I hope that didn’t have nails in it.” About the time I got to my friend’s house, the TPS light came on. OK, no worries, I have a little compressor. I figure I’ll take care of it later and go in and visit with my friends for a few hours. Later I went to leave and realized both tires on the driver side were flat. Did I mention it was winter and my friend lived in the mountains? Well it was late and cold and my little compressor wasn’t cutting it. After going back in the house and warming up a bit, my friend suggested that we take the wheels off, throw them in his truck and I take the truck home, get my tires fixed in the next couple days and then return his truck for my car. That worked fine, and the store where I took the tires to get them fixed refused to charge me.
Towing my trailer out to Wyoming a couple of years ago I had a blowout on the right side. Took forever to change because 1) I couldn’t get the jack out of my truck because Ram, in their infinite wisdom, secured it with a bolt that goes all the way through the body and is exposed to road salt. I had to use bike chain lube as penetrating oil to get it out without breaking it. 2) I forgot where I put the jack handle the last time I used it. For some reason I left it under the back seat instead of under the front seat with the jack.
Got it changed to the ancient spare, which miraculously held air until I got to the next major town, got a new tire (with a deep cut in the sidewall that I unfortunately didn’t notice until later) and continued on my way, an hour or two later than I had planned. Then my truck died, which is a whole other story I’ve repeated multiple times here.
~Two months later I went back out to pick up the truck and trailer (I told you there was a story), and about two hours in the other side tire on the trailer blew. Lesson learned, when one goes the other will soon follow. Luckily, it happened before the nearest tire place closed so I was able to get that fixed as well.
I’ve since replaced both of the crappy tires I got on the trip with GoodYear Endurances and moved one of the new tires to the spare so that’s no longer 15 years old either. The whole thing was a PITA, and reinforced that when they say to replace trailer tires every 5-7 years they’re not kidding (I was right at 7 and planning to replace them before the next camping season).
My wife had driven my Tacoma to a farm where she helps out with harvesting, and picked up a nail. The coastal salt air had made the lug bolts almost impossible to take off, so I charged up an air compressor, drove it out there and put enough air in the tire to get me to a tire shop and let them deal with it. From them I found out that I’d made another huge mistake. A year previous someone had given me some black anodized tire stem caps, and I put them on and forgot about them. Aluminum, brass, and salt air made the caps fuse to the stems, and I had to have all the stems replaced, and the tires mounted and balanced. I spent a half a day trying to get those caps off! The first one on the flat tire came off, but the other three had welded themselves together. That was a costly mistake. Don’t put aluminum caps on brass fittings. Plastic works just fine.
A few weeks ago a friend gave me some screw in tire plugs he bought online. I’ll give those a try next time.
My TPMS read my right rear tire as 8 PSI lower than the rest after a mile of driving. I visually inspected it and it looked like the rest (albeit in the dark).
So I stopped at the nearest gas station and hooked it up to an air compressor.
Turns out the TPMS was wrong, so I had to drain the air I just filled it up with…
Frankly the most tire issues I’ve had are from bicycle tires. I understand that bicycle tires are lighter duty than motor vehicle tires, but god damn are they flimsy.
You basically have 3 options for puncture “proofing” bike tires.
Thick Tubes
Sealant filled tubes
And Tubeless (which are sealant filled) setups.
Thick tubes ride rough,
Sealant filled tubes take more effort to pedal,
And Tubeless setups need replacement of the sealant every year or so, requiring you to remove the tire and scrape out all the dried out sealant.
God Help you if you got the biological caltrops that are Goat’s head
Frankly I don’t think I’m gonna buy another bicycle again.
I’ve had more rides ruined by flats on tubeless tires than I ever did with tubes. Admittedly, a lot of those were caused by the stupid rim tape they used from the factory on my wheels, but a close second is leaks around the valve stem, despite the fact that it will be so junked up with sealant that you can’t even fill the tire with air.
I’ve gone to TPU tubes for a lot of my bikes – much lighter than rubber ones, more puncture resistant than rubber ones, but the cheaper ones are prone to quality control issues in my experience.
I bought some BBS replica wheels. The tires on them still had really good tread, so i didnt think to replace them.. turns out they were like 12 years old and had sat motionless the whole time so they were flat spotted like crazy. I had one of the worst drives home you can imagine on those.
picked up a screw or a nail or something in my driver rear tire (315/35-20) and got a flat tire monitor error in my x5. i disabled tpms (and xdrive, for that matter) so FTM notifies me if it notices a constant discrepancy in rotational velocity between the tires.
Plugged it with something from the toolbox in the garage, aired it up, two weeks later, same ftm error. same tire. same puncture
the tire plug i had used was leaking. shouldve known. it was old and dried out and had been sitting (between the two plastics) in my toolbox for god knows how long
replaced the plug with a newer one and this time added the included rubber cement, aired it up, and havent had a problem since
Within the last 5 – 10 years have found nails once in tires on each of the minivans my wife was driving at the time and fixed them easily with plugs. Would’ve done the same for my sister-in-laws RAV4 last year but she elected to just replace the tire.
Twice got flats in the same Festiva. First I recall (front right tire) was because I must have grazed the curb ever so slightly parallel parking in Trenton in the mid ’90s. Put spare on, got back to work, later replaced tire. The other was when I was leaving the parking lot of the trade school I was attending around 2002 – 2003 time frame. There was a speed bump that I’d gone over dozens of times and then one time I must have been off slightly to one side. So up and over the bump I go, then on the way down there must have been something like a concrete parking stop or whatever close enough that I just grazed causing the front left outside wheel lip to bend. Put spare on, went home. That one was easy to fix by hammering the wheel true so it would hold air and it never leaked again. Steel wheels were a plus in this case.
The worst was when I got flats on both right hand tires simultaneously in the XR4Ti I had due to fatigue induced inattentiveness coming home from work one Saturday afternoon in the late ’90s. Running over some decorative stones alongside someone’s property blew out both tires in an instant. Fortunately not going too fast so no loss of control. Pulled over knowing full well that there’s no way to get home like that. Property owner not very happy that I was leaving my car where it was, but I promised I’d be back to get it later that day, which is what I did – late, late at night to avoid traffic. Since only a few miles from home, enlisted a friend to follow behind me as I drove 5 miles per hour all the way. I chalk that up to being one of the crappiest days from my early twenties.
I was on the way to work driving a ’78 Bronco on 33×12.50R15 Super Swamper TSLs. I was driving it because my daily driver was totalled by a service van who ran a sign in a construction zone and their insurance agent wasn’t returning calls.
I had pulled to a light that led to a freeway onramp. I heard a hissing noise that changed in pitch as I slowly rolled forward in traffic. Light changed and traffic cleared and I hopped onto the freeway at 65+ mph But things felt off. Like one side was lower than the other. At that moment my brain connected all the dots and the steering started to pull to the right. I laid into the throttle to get ahead of traffic so I could pull to the shoulder, where I drifted to a stop on a fully flat front passenger tire. My first reaction was to call my boss and let them know I was going to be late. At that moment a city service truck pulled up behind me and helped replace the tire with a spare in just a few minutes using their on-board air tools. There was a fist-sized chunk of sidewall missing from the tire. Drove to a nearby discount tire and got a set of BFG ATs to replace all of them.
Boss actually had seen me as they passed by as I was on the shoulder, but didn’t realize it was me until later.
I stupidly swerved to avoid a truck and hit the curb in my Mini, popping my front tire. I went to put on the spare tire, but the Mini has this absolutely baffling tiny jack. I’m glad it is there but it’s super confusing.
After finally figuring it out, I got the spare tire on, got in the car, and immediately backed up over the included wheel chock, popping my rear tire. I have no idea why they made that thing so sharp.
My Accord has twice in the past year had a random, fast decrease in air in one tire from about 32psi to 15psi, throwing on the tire light. Refilled it both times and it held air. No idea what caused it, and I want new wheels and tires, so hopefully it can keep working for a few more months.
My 16 GMC Canyon was my first car with real individual pressure sensors on each tire. I picked up a nail driving to work one day and could see the pressure dropping live. Luckily my office was across from a Sears tire, so I just drove in there and asked them to fix it while I went to work.
Boss’s 15yo Outback hit a pothole in SC and waited for a car service, the wheel had broke the lug face off and physically split. Car was rolling on the outside edge beadlocked tire. Said car service installed the donut, flat, and didn’t bring a compressor. First for me for wheel destruction, kinda expected bs from the car service.
I went 20 years of driving without a flat until we moved to Oregon. Then we had 3 flats, on 3 different vehicles, all driving on forest service roads. Turns out the gravel used out here as a lot more sharp edges. I’ve now learned to air down to 30 psi before leaving the pavement.
Worse one was with the campervan. I had a space saver spare that was the same OD but 1/2 the width as a regular tire. It was supposed to be at 60 psi but since I hadn’t checked it for awhile it was down to 30 psi. I had to limp down 15 miles of forest service road to get to the pavement then another 10 miles or so to the nearest gas station to air it up. Lesson learned – check spare tire pressure. I also swapped that space saver for a full size spare and carry an air pump now as I need to air back up. I added a tire repair kit as well just for fun.
Last time I had a problem, it was with the wheel, not the tire. The tire had been slowly leaking air and needed to be topped up every 4-5 days or so, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Eventually, I jacked the car up and went under it, and saw that the inside of the rim was bent where the bead of the tire sits. It was an alloy wheel, so it couldn’t really be repaired, so I bought a used wheel off of eBay for around $100, and then had a tire shop mount the tire on the bent wheel on the new wheel for $50. Haven’t had tire problems since *knocks on wood*
Adding on to this though, I will never buy a daily driver that doesn’t have a spare wheel. The car I bought last year was bought partially because the other model I was looking at didn’t come with a spare.
Last week I pulled my track and autocross set of Vitour P1s out of storage to find that one of them had a nail in it. Normally no big deal, but they were well past the wear bars so no shop would touch them. Thankfully I had my essentially brand-new set of Civic Type R Spec Michelin PS4S sitting right next to them. This ended up being for the better because the Track Day I went too on Saturday had a torrential downpour for the first of the afternoon sessions, so much so that I skipped 2 sessions and took a nap in the back of the FK8. Followed by a lot of rivers and puddles on the track for the rest of the afternoon. Those Vitours were sketchy in the wet when new.
Last flat on the road – 1989. I drove over a granite curb buried in snow entering a driveway and sliced a tire in my Jetta. Granite curbs are a menace in Maine – sharp as a knife until they are a hundred years old or so.
I did have a slow leak in my BMW convertible while it was parked at the airport a couple years ago so it was flat when I landed after a week. Pumped up the tire with the inflator in the trunk and drove home. I had a screw in the tire of my Saab convertible once. Didn’t leak until I unscrewed it. So I screwed it back in and drove to the tire shop and had it patched.
My mother managed to drive off the edge of my driveway in my Saab 9-5 Aero and slice a tire on the culvert under the driveway. Grrrrrr. I put the spare on, and discovered that it was the wrong size and hung up on the brake caliper – AFTER I put a nice streak 4′ down my painted driveway that is still there to this day. Grrrrrr. The woman is a menace behind the wheel.
Knock on wood, I have been extremely lucky with automotive/motorcycle tires. I average a flat every 4 years, and all of those have been repairable with a plug. I even did one myself since the tire shop was closed. Bicycle tires, on the other hand, are much more frustrating; I average 2-3 flats/summer. I have tried tubeless tires, but my last set would never stay sealed, so I had to add a ton of sealant, and when that failed, I went back to running inner tubes. Got a new bike over the weekend, which came tubeless from the shop, so HOPEFULLY I have a better experience.
My last set of Continental ExtremeContact tires on the Abarth got about 1/4th the distance their warranty claimed, thankfully Tire Rack stood behind me on the claim.
That was a cakewalk compared to the tires prior to them, my one experiment into truly cheap Walmart tires with their “Waterfall” Eco Dynamic brand. They got four thousand miles before both hitting their wear indicators and the tread beginning to separate on one, and later on all four. Today’s reviews of them reveal many others having the same problem, but my attempt at getting warranty replacements through their distributor Horizon Tire Inc. was just before the big wave of negative reviews. I had to gather a mountain of proof: the original purchase invoice, the installation receipt, the proof my car was aligned and maintained, a signed affidavit by a tire shop showing unusual wear and a bulge. I sent a video of them spinning, bought a tire depth gauge for photos, and more. In the end some butthead named Philip Zhu mockingly denied my claim and states “there are obvious signs of abuse” and that was that.
Here’s part of my final reply to these purveyors of rubbery garbage:
What’s the point in having a “warranty” if it doesn’t cover defective tires? Your specious statement “we have determined that the tread separation that you are claiming is a result of road hazards, which we do not cover” is an insult. It’s a Fiat Abarth, not the kind of car one can manhandle. Claiming your tire failed because of something I did is laughable, you never asked and couldn’t know. An equivalent statement on my part might be “Philip Zhu walks funny because his buttplug chafes” – a statement that while humorous, is merely conjecture on my part.
6 or so weeks back now, frustrated at our lack of snow, I headed up the mountain fairly late in the day to get on the portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway they don’t gate off. My 2yo snow tires have only a couple k’s on them, and it’s killin me.
Just as I pass the Rescue Squad a couple miles before the Parkway, it got noisy & the rear was loose. FML. Pulled over at VDOT, shoveled 4-5” out of the way to make a spot to put the spare on. Only to find that the valve stem on the 23yo spare was done: she ain’t holding air—even with my good portable compressor
Tow company’s are slammed: it’ll be several hours. And it’s now almost dark.
VDOT GUY said they’ll be in&out all night & it can stay where I tucked it. Called BIL with the shameful, ‘can ya come rescue me?’
Took tire & spare with me. Tire had a clean puncture presumably from the shale cut next to the road. Patched tire, new valve stem in tire & spare, picked the car back up after work the next day.
Only $23–but the ignominy, it burns.
I also seem to get the punctures ‘too close’ to the sidewall to patch…gggrrrrr$$$$.
I live on a state highway that sees over 8000 vehicles a day and a lot of those vehicles are trucks. I run over stuff in my GMC Canyon all the time. Usually, the stuff gets run over by one of the front tires, which somehow makes it stick up just enough… to puncture the rear tire a few milliseconds later.
The worst was a 5/16″ box wrench, but I’ve also had finishing nails, staples, screws, and even a sharp piece of stone once.
Good thing I get the road hazard warranty at Wal-Mart so they just fix it for free when I bring them the tire. I get my money’s worth out of that warranty. Unless it’s too close to the sidewall. Then I have to buy a new tire.
The last time I had a flat it was a staple. I was parked at work, and it was raining. A few people saw the low tire during the morning and told me about it, so at lunchtime I clocked out, ate my lunch in about 8 minutes, then put my coat on and went out to the muddy parking lot. (in the rain) I quickly got out the jack, the hardware, and the 4-way, loosened the lug nuts, jacked up the truck, lowered the spare from under the bed, took off the flat tire and threw it in the bed of the truck, installed the spare, raised up the spare tire holder, lowered the truck, tightened the lug nuts, then tossed the jack and hardware in the bed of the truck, and made it back inside with 5 minutes to spare of my half-hour lunch break.
Like a NASCAR pit stop, only slower and muddier. 🙂
Not a tire problem so much as a wheel problem, but my foolish self forgot to properly torque the lug nuts once and the thing nearly came off when I was going 70 on the interstate. Sheared 2 studs off and was hanging on by only a single nut. Thankfully this was at like 5 AM so nobody else was on the road at the time.
I drove a Pontiac Vibe for almost a decade, and for some reason that thing was the queen of flats. On the one hand, I’ve changed tires in uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous situations. On the other, I got really good at it.
One time I was swapping a flat out for the donut in a college town. These 4 big guys swagger up and take over. I let them since I was in a dress and wedges and they were fun to flirt with. After they left, I started the car but just had … a feeling. I got out and checked the lugs and they were not even handtight! You could shake the tire around it was so loose on there. I jacked the car back up, took the donut off, and redid the entire process since I was worried of what else they might have screwed up.