crazym0nkey

So on Sunday I was driving back from my winter vacation from SF back to school in Riverside. 450 mile trip, so as usual I check my tire pressure. 34 PSI on stock tires would cause no problems on my ride back. So I drive approx. 390 miles through I-580 East then I-5. Right before I take my exit, the 210 East what do you know, my right rear tire blows out. Not only does it blow out, it totally shreaded apart when I looked at it. Thankfully it was the rear tire or else I probably would have spun out or lost control if it was the front tire, as I was driving 80 MPH.

Okay no biggie there, I change the tire (for the first time in my life) and it's on and I get moving. Of course we can't drive over 50 MPH on the spare (or so the manual/tire says) so I get into the slow lane and drive at 40 MPH and turn on my hazards. I believe I did the right thing but there were people who high beamed me and honked. I ignore them because I don't think I'm doing anything wrong (since it was literally a 5 lane highway). So all the honking, high beams, just make my whole ordeal much shittier.

But thats not it, as I'm switching highways at the 57 South and 71 point, still going 40 MPH, I pull into the new lane that is created (for the 71 Exit) and what do you know, I hit a pot hole. And to my surprise, my front right tire has a hole in it, but not shreaded like my rear tire. So I pull out of the highway and wobble my car to a gas station. Luckily I knew a friend who drove her TL and was close by, so I wait for that spare tire to come.

So my friends get there and I start jacking my car (as previously stated I only changed my tire once, so this is the second). So flame on about what is gonna happen to me. The first time, I didnt know the little tabs were the reinforced parts, I thought it just meant put the jack behind it or whatever. So I had no problems changing the first tire, so with my previous experience I found another hard spot (or so i thought) and jack it up. I get it high enough to take off the flat, but not high enough to put on the spare. So, I keep jacking up the car and what do you know, the point that I thought was the jack point collapses, so now I have a hole in the floor on the passenger side under the carpet. The car slowly settles onto the rotor and rest there for about 15 minutes as I freak out. So now I think i may have bent the control arm? But I felt nothing after we managed to get the two good tires on the front and the spares in the back. So I make it home.

I know I will have to pay for the repairs to the floor and rotor, but that is not my main concern right now. It is the tires that I'm worried about. I'm probably not gonna drive my car on the spares, so I probably won't drive for the next 2 weeks now.

Now to pose some questions, since I have no idea what to do.
1) Do our stock tires (yes their shitty) have a defect on them? Or did someone tamper with them? because my friend said this shouldn't have happened. Tires should not shread the way I looked and the pot hole would not create the holes like what it has. (SEE PICTURES BELOW). I have 20760 Miles on my car (bought new) after I made it back, so they blew with about 20700 miles on them.

2) Do I need to replace the spares? I drove about 70 miles on one and 30 on the other.

3) What are your opinions on what could have caused this.

4) What new tires shall I get? And do you think if this is a defect (since I still had tread) that Acura/Michelin will pay for it?

And here are the pictures........

Rear Right Tire (Need a better view?)


Right Rear Tire (Heres a better view. How does this happen?)


Right Rear Rim


Mileage (20760)


Front Right Tire


Front Right Tire (a small tear)


Front Right Tire (different tears, on left side, very visible and one between the L and I of "Michelin")


Front Right Tire ( The Biggest "Tear" more like a fat Hole)


As my car sits in the garage now on 2 spares




On the side note, I saw quite a lot of TLs pass me up on the highways. Maybe some of you guys saw some retarded NBP TL-S in the slow lane driving like a douche bag at 40 MPH with hazards on.

terse

you go to UCR? cool..

nick04tl

there is nothing wrong with michelin tires. the are one of the better tires you can buy. i really doubt someone tampered with your tires. if someone tampered with them they would have been flat before you got to the highway. probably what happened was you hit something with your tire that probably cut it and the tire deflated. the reason it shreded so bad was because you drove on it to long with no air in the tire.
i would recommend you put michelins back on the car if you have the money. and as far as the spares are concerned i think they are fine. i have known people that have drove on spares for weeks.

TeknoKing

yikes, sorry for your trouble, but a lot it could of been avoided, especially the unecessary hole in the car.

Advice to others, read the manual, memorise it, so you jack up the car using the jack-points.

As long as you are healthy and alive, the rest dont matter.


Nick, common, man, everyone knows Michellin suck!

fsttyms1

its not the tires fault. it looks like they had some type of damage like a pot hole or something. they wernt over inflated at 34psi.

as for the spare, you can drive hwy speed on them, and they are fine to keep using as spares

MistaWrongy

sorry about that

u got a picture of the hole in the floor?

vishnus11

Im inclined to think that it has something to do with your tire pressures. Maybe the gauage u used to check your tire pressures was off....cheap branded stuff can be off quite a bit. As a result, you though your tires were at 34 psi but infact they were at a high level? Check the guage to see how accurate it is.

Did you inflate the tires before driving the vehicle i.e. cold air pressure.

If the tires are at 34psi (cold air pressure) then they shouldn't have blown because the max rating should be higher than that, I believe 40ish psi

As far as the michelin, I had two sets of them on my acura, and am about to put another set on my accord. I love em, and like someone else said, they are some of the better built tires around that are not prone to flatspotting, sidewall blowouts etc.

Hope everything goes well. Just be happy that your safe and alive and healthy. $$$ is cheap.

crazym0nkey

I'm not mad about anything that happened. I'm just happy that it's all over with. It seems like tire pressure is the culprit, but I checked it with a electronic and one of those manual tire pressure things (both reading 34 PSI on all 4 wheels). Cold tires when I filled them up to 34 PSI (I believe if you drive over 5 miles then the tires are not cold? I drove less than a mile to the gas station for the PSI, not hard, very easy so I'm pretty sure my tires were still cold.) But maybe I leaked some air on the drive back? Cause I don't check the tire pressure while I'm driving because it would be pointless to check tire pressure on a warm tire.

The jacking up the car was totally my fault cause im a noob and I just myself, so I will save the humilation and not post pictures of those.

As for Michelin, sure their okay quality, but theres so many other brands that perform better than these stock tires. And as far as money goes, that is not much of a concern for me. I can shell out the money for a better set of tires.

I'm sure that my rear right tire was not flat when I started the trip, and if it was flat I would have felt the car lobsided/pull to the right. But i felt my whole car just drop when that tire shreaded apart.

From what friends have told me, when you hit a pothole, the leakage/tear/hole in the tire would be on the tread side. They could be wrong ? But maybe the pot hole was just really big, I didn't think about turning back and looking at the size of the hole.

@cUr@-TL

why???

i would NEVER put those michelin tires on my car, i had them on stock wheels and let me tell you. they sucked!! they were crappy in the rain, crappy on dry pavement and crappy in snow. shitty tires. when they were worn enough, i replaced them with bridgestone potenza re950 and man was i amazed!! on top of being cheaper ($), the bridgestones were WAAAAAAAAAAAAYY better than the michelin.. on both dry and wet pavement. Handling was GREATLY improved.

the only michelin tire i would use is the Pilot Sport...

Pure Adrenaline

iTrader: (2)

The second one with tears in the sidewall, that's obviously from hitting the pothole.

The first one, however, where the tread completely detached itself from the sidewalls... that does not look normal to me for some reason.

That's exactly what happened to the Firestone Wilderness AT tires. Besides, 34 PSI cold, that's perfectly normal.

If I were you, I would send a picture of it to the NHTSA, and to Michelin. Not for some frivolous lawsuit, but ask NHTSA if that's considered normal under the circumstances. And ask Michelin (simulataneously, or wait 'til you get an answer from NHTSA) what's up. I've heard some horror stories about their customer relations, but it's worth a shot. You could possibly get a full or partial credit for the tire. With these tires going for like 200+ bucks each, why not give it a shot?

Good luck, and I'm glad you came out safe.

njzprettyboy

I run 45 PSI on my tires, and have NEVER had a problem (knock on wood)

TeknoKing

45 PSI? damn, thats the max, I hope you never hit a big pot hole or a big puddle of water while driving at highway speeds, you will regret it. Plus your handling on wet roads must suck.

I use 36PSI, which I think is the most optimal, gas wise and handling wise.

Flounder

Wow, sorry for having a bad day but at least you didn't damage the type S wheels.

vfrdirk

Warm tire pressures aren't necessarily useless. When I'm testing new tires for any of my vehicles, 2 wheel or 4, I check cold pressures and then add 10% to that value as a warm tire pressure goal. If my warm pressures are more than 10% higher I increase the cold pressure values I use. If the tire didn't increase in pressure by 10%, I lower the cold pressure slightly.

Over the years I've discovered that, for me, a 10% tire pressure difference between cold and hot has offered the best compromise of fuel mileage, ride comfort, tire wear and grip.

Dirk

vinovelo

I agree about the sub-par performance of the OEM Michelins. I have experienced
markedly better performance and ride quality with replacing them on two seperate
and very different cars (94 Camry and 01 TL). I'm using Yokahama Yk420's now,
not the best you can put on these cars but very good and they are way better than
the stock tires.

UnsanePyro

Thats really interesting, I actually want to look into it with my car now. So say I have 30 PSI (reccomended) cold, I should be at ~33 PSI hot, correct?

TeknoKing

you should be 32 PSI cold, 30 is low, with 32 cold, depends on how fast and long you've driven, you should be around >= 36PSI

MADCAT

Becasue of the frequent temp jumps up here in Toronto, I put mine at 34 PSI when cold. So that way it will go either up/down 2 PSI which is still safe. In the winter I check my tires about every 4 days. or when you fill up for gas.

In the summer I leave them at 32 cold
Winter/Fall 34 cold.

TeknoKing

i use 36psi cold. if there is a lot of snow i'll drop to 32