Sidewall cuts
- Thread starter freedom_in_4low
- Start date
Sounds like you have already decided the tire is unsafe. Your peace of mind is probably worth the price of a tire.
If you have a warranty I would take it in and see what they say.
Personally I do not pay for tire warranties because I travel too many places far from the tire store where I get my tires. I blew a side wall on my Suburban in the middle of no where West Texas. Had to travel over 100 mi to the nearest town with a tire store. Don’t know what happened but the outer sidewall on the left front just shredded at 70mph. No heat build up and the sidewall was too damaged to make the cause evident. Almost $700 for 2 replacement tires. Old tire was only 3 yrs old and had 90% tread left.
Personally I do not pay for tire warranties because I travel too many places far from the tire store where I get my tires. I blew a side wall on my Suburban in the middle of no where West Texas. Had to travel over 100 mi to the nearest town with a tire store. Don’t know what happened but the outer sidewall on the left front just shredded at 70mph. No heat build up and the sidewall was too damaged to make the cause evident. Almost $700 for 2 replacement tires. Old tire was only 3 yrs old and had 90% tread left.
OP
I think that pic was supposed to make you feel better not worse
I know, but that would only have happened if the rubber thickness outside of the structure was clearly and obviously thicker than how far I can put a feeler gauge into the cut....and it's not.
That's more definitively worded than i would put it; It does feel like a guilty until proven innocent scenario but I'm not closed off to being convinced if presented with convincing information. I'm just weighing the potential consequences - a sudden loss of pressure at speed on a vehicle that spends hours at a time at highway speed en route to go wheeling, often carrying my kids...a failure of the tire could be personally catastrophic, much more so than most failed components. I bought the road hazard warranty so I think it may cost me nothing, I'm just trying to get a feel for how hard I should push back if they resist.
ANd for the record, I'm not really that concerned that it's going to fail going into town tomorrow. My concern is if the structure is compromised in any way whatsoever, it could easily precipitate a blowout 3 years from now when it's been cycled under the rig's weight 11 million times and corroded due to moisture intrusion through the cut. I've had the tires 3 years and they're not halfway through the wear so they're gonna be around for a while.
If it was a trail only vehicle that got trailered and not driven on the highway, that too would be a different story. I wouldn't hesitate to use it as a trail spare as is.
This is literally the first time I've ever paid for a tire warranty. It happened by accident, because the guy at Discount did it without me asking for it, but I went with it instead of having him take it off. Since I always carry a spare, it doesn't really matter where I am, I just swap the damaged tire out and stop at any of their locations at my convenience.
We ended up trying the glue tread last year on Pritchett. The first kit one of the guys pulled out all the glue was dried up even though it had been unopened.
Good idea to check those kits out every now and then. Or add some more tire glue.
If I had a tire with a hole in it I'd try it but I'm not cutting a hole in any of mine.
They’re doing just fine.
I have 2 issues for me personally.
1: I travel to too many places where the chain tire stores by me locally do not have a presence. Only place that comes close is Walmart.
2: I’m anal and I will not drive any distance without a spare.
When I’m moving equipment from Ca to my place in ND I even bring 1 loose trailer tire in addition to a mounted spare along with a set of wheel bearings with me just because I’ve needed them in the past. I have blown way more trailer tires than vehicle tires because the trailers get abused with going off road to get to my equipment locations. Also I can get better quality vehicle tires than trailer tires. Since I’ve started using Maxxis trailer tires my failure rate has diminished greatly.
A buddy of mine blew a front trailer tire and it promptly took out his rear trailer tire. Stuff happens.
I was driving up the 15 yrs ago and a semi hauling building materials lost a keg of tar paper nails. My front truck tires cleared the road for the rear and the same for the trailer. Truck sounded like it was on studs. No air leaks. Got to the tire shop in Barstow and they had replacements in stock. By the time I got out of there there were more than a dozen vehicles in the lot with more coming in. When we got back on the interstate we came across the semi pulled over by the CHP. I stopped and got the trucking company’s info and the CHP case number. The company did reimburse me. There were cars pulled over with flats all the way to Vegas.
Crazy things can happen, but 99% of the time they don’t. If you try to back up plan for every 1% you’ll spend more time worrying about the 1% than you would when that 1% happens.
I can't comment on if you will be good or not, but FWIW, my tires were way worse. :/
My current tires might even be worse. The rocks have ripped lugs off at times. I had a chunk out of my sidewall that was at least 1/4" thick. I learned a lot when I saw that.
Arizona hates tires. A big LJ club did some trails here last year and on a single trail had 4 ripped sidewalls