2 tire blowouts in one trip--looking for a cause

There IS a way to learn new sensors without a scan tool and without the tpms tool . . .

But the sensors have to be gm compatible, and they have to already have a serial number

The method I’m thinking of won’t work for a “blank” sensor which is waiting to be told what its serial number should be

It’s also possible that the tire guy didn’t even bother replacing the valve stem at all . . .

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Thank you. The reality is 3 tires in the trunk is only a bit of extra weight so likely doesn’t help as much as would be needed…just feels better. I understand this is a physics question regarding inertia, friction, force, the size of the engine, the wheel base, the kind of car, whether the spin is on a flat icy surface or if its on an incline such as a banked curve in the road or if by chance there is a snow drift before you hit the ditch, etc. I was just trying to answer in generalities.

Again, looking for opinions on specific diagnostics for our situation.

It will make a difference in rear traction. Whether that is helpful is debatable, but I think it can make a difference.

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I knew somebody that had a fwd car with 1 doughnut spare where it was supposed to be, and 2 full size spares mounted on rims in the trunk . . . you got it, they ate up pretty much the entire trunk

And it gets better . . .

The person didn’t even know how to change a tire

A key piece of information is missing here, or at least I could not find it. Do you have separate wheels for the summer and winter tires or do you dismount the tires from the wheels and switch tires at season’s end? If the second, is the right rear wheel always the same wheel?

If you only have one set of wheels and remount the tires on them and the same wheel always ends up in the same position, then you may have a wheel problem. If not, something else is going on.

When the tires blow out, can you see any abrasion around the blowout? Or is it a clean tear in the side of the tire?

If there are different wheels at the same location, follow her car in yours and watch the action of the wheel. I suspect it will be bouncing up and down like crazy because you need a new strut/shock at that location.

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I have not read all of the replies but in case it has not been mentioned you need to have the wheel rim checked with a new tire mounted for leaks around the bead or the valve stem.

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What do you mean by “blow out”? A catastrophic tire failure or just a flat tire?

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These do not seem to be blowouts. Instead, tire being ruined by being driven while underinflated. As it’s being ruined, at some point it tears through or dismounts from the rim.

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Being the Rust Belt I would not be surprised in the wheel rim needing a bit of work to seal properly.

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Also if the same wheels are used year round, the frequent dismounting and mounting means more opportunities for damage to them, as well as to the tires.

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  • Whatever caused one tire to blow out caused the second blowout too. both tires ran over the same pothole, something punctured both treads, etc

  • Low profile tires. True story. One of my econo-box owning co-workers sold his car & purchased a VW GTI that came with low profile tires. He wanted to effect a more sporty appearance. After that he was constantly late for work b/c of flat tires. Apparently just going over a big bump can cause them to go flat. He said it always happened on some railroad tracks he crossed on the way to work. He decided railroad tracks seemed a bad place to get a flat tire, plus he his job was in jeopardy due to the lateness, so he sold the GTI and bought another econo-box with normal tires. After that he was less sporty, but never late for work again.

After my daughter had a low tire for the first time on her 2005 Prius, I figured out that model did not yet have TPMS and found a $20 “afetrmarket TPMS kit” on ebay, which works nicely for half a year already:

image

you simply replace your valve caps with sensors, use double-sided adhesive tape to attach unit on the dash and it will use solar power to keep the central unit working, batteries in the wheel sensors are rated for 2-3 years, then it is simple over-the-counter button-cell battery

the moment tire gets below normal (you program threshold yourself), it will beep and flash

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what did that run you . . . ?

This was in the OP.

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Don’t forget to have the alignment checked. 4 wheel.

I would just ask a tire shop to dunk all 4 wheels and tires to see where the leaks are. The second thing I would mention is that winter tires are much less suited to high speed driving. If at all low in pressure they will heat a lot. Interstate 75 North to the bridge has a 75 mile speed limit. If she is going 10 over like everyone else, I would not be comfortable doing a sustained speed of 85 on Firestone Winterforce tires. There are high performance winter tires but they cost a lot more than those.

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If there’s a hole in a balloon, then even if you blow it up properly, it’s going to deflate.

Same thing if there’s a “hole” in your wheel. The tire can be perfectly fine, but the air escapes out of the crack in the wheel.

If your daughter has taken her freshman physics class by now, she can tell you that more weight on the end of a rotating body makes it harder to stop the rotation. When you skid, the car is trying to rotate around the front wheels, which means the rear of the car is on the end of the rotating system. Putting more weight back there makes skids harder to recover from.

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+1
Additionally, I would argue that placing more weight in the extreme rear of a FWD vehicle will disrupt its weight distribution to a certain extent, and that might lead to less traction for the drive wheels.

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No to separate wheels for each season. Only have 4 wheels and the tires are remounted at each season switch. The tires are marked as to front/rear and right/left with a yellow grease pen or chalk on the tires which I’ve noticed when we’ve stored them so I assume on the remount they are putting them back on the same wheel. Not sitting there watching them so I can only assume. On the 1st blow out I glanced at the tire and only saw shreds in one spot, but I didn’t look that closely and I didn’t get down to ground level to inspect it because it was outside and it was snowing. On the 2nd blow out the car is downstate. My daughter was sitting on the side of an interstate waiting for the tow truck in the dark so I highly doubt she paid attention to that detail. I will ask this next place to take a look at the tire first before replacing the tire to look for that detail, so thank you for that tip. I did drive behind my daughter this weekend for 5-6 blocks and don’t recall thinking about her car bouncing up-and-down though I wasn’t looking for that at the time. My daughter has not mentioned any bouncing when she was driving except for noticing the car driving differently on this last trip down which is why she stopped to look at the tire in the first place. I will mention struts to be looked at this next fix…thank you.

That’s just asking for trouble. Twice a year you’re putting stress on the tire beads on both sets of tires, and introducing a possible point of failure. Most tires only get mounted on one set of rims. A used tire might get mounted twice before it’s taken out of service. If a set of tires lasts four years, you’re putting eight times the amount of stress on the beads. They weren’t designed to withstand that kind of repeated mounting and un-mounting.

I recommend you find a good junkyard that sells used parts and buy the cheapest set of steel rims you can get. Then mount the winter tires on those rims and leave them there until they wear out.

There’s a possibility that this is the source of your trouble, and buying a second set of rims might actually save you money by making your tires last longer.

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