The tire size you gave is normal for your car and I know you’re not taking corners at high speed.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been a mechanic for too many decades and have never seen nor have I even heard of a tire falling off of an aluminum wheel rim; or even a steel one.
Any tire that I’ve ever seen that was separated or separating from the rim was mangled after having blown out for whatever reason. It never just “fell off”.
You’re not likely to find anyone else stating this is normal behavior either.
Hopefully this place is not installing tires with silicone lubricant as mentioned by Rod KNox; or grease. I hesitate to mention grease but I’ve actually seen that once upon a time.
I’ve never used it myself, but if your wheel rims are pitted or corroded they may not be sealing properly and might benefit from an application of bead sealer.
This mechanic is probably utterly incompetent. He’s certainly full of BS
If he has brown eyes, you know why . . .
Just kidding . . . I have brown eyes myself
Anyways, I’ve mounted my fair share of tires over the years, including a good amount on aluminum alloy rims . . . not one of them has just fallen off the tire
Not that I know anything about it but I have never had a tire come off. Usually if you have a leaky rim, you’ll lose air and the tire will go flat but not come off. As suggested sounds like you have a mismatch tire size for the rims. I believe the original tire size is 205/65-15, so you can just look on the side of the tire and see what the numbers are. If you haven’t had the car since new though and someone changed the rims, the tire size could be right but the wheel size wrong. I think maybe you should go to a different good tire shop and have them look at it to see what they say.
Yes, it is pretty common for aluminum wheels to corrode and develop leaks around the beads. Using a bead sealant helps this, but even then, it is not always effective.
Yes, in cold weather, the tire and the wheel will shrink at different rates and sometimes that causes leaks to develop that were not there before. Also fairly common.
Yes, when the tire pressure gets low, it is possible for the tire to unseat itself from the rim. That’s pretty common, too.
So in some respects, what the OP was told is accurate. However, the shop’s attitude was not. They should have been helpful instead of defensive. (On a personal note, getting defensive is a pretty common human trait.)
Another questions and an update - I took my car to the shop this morning, the owner told me he’d be there when I explained my concerns, but wasn’t. He put air in the tire without sealant and found it was leaking several places along the rim, including the valve stem. He checked the rim, there wasn’t any pitting. He’s going to seal it, replace the valve, check the other ones. I’ll see what happens.
The underinflation many of you have mentioned has made me think about my tire pressure. (And, yes, Oldtimer 11, now I understand that looking isn’t enough. I’m an oldtimer too -have been driving since the 60s - I guess I never really ‘got it’ how much pressure radial tires can lose before it’s visible.) But it seems that since I’ve gotten these tires, I need to add air a lot. I’ve been trying to keep them fully inflated (when I remember to check) because of gas mileage connection. I don’t drive that much – but is it normal for them to lose 10 pounds of pressure in a month or two when I’ve only driven a few hundred miles? Since I haven’t checked them in a while, it’s possible this one was even lower. If that means the tires were leaking around the rims, I’m hoping they’ll figure out how fix them. And if they keep losing pressure, I’ll go someplace else to find out the problem. Maybe that will keep them on their rims.
I’m in total agreement that tires can lose air pressure over several months but it’s still near impossible for me to see a wheel rim losing the tire at 25 PSI.
One more thing to consider. Just WHAT did the tire mounter use to lube the bead before mounting the tire? It MUST be a soap-based lube like Ru-glyde (sp?) that dries up and becomes a bit sticky. It is slimy stuff like soap that rinses off in water. If this guy is squirting WD-40 or old motor oil on the bead before he puts it on, RUN from this shop and have your tires cleaned off and remounted. Oil rots the rubber and keeps it slippery enough to pop off the bead.
I suppose it is possible the original tires were from a bad lot from the get-go. It’s certainly possible for a tire manufacturer to make a mistake on a batch, not test them adequately, and allow a bad lot to get out the door, sold to a tire vendor. Unlikely, but possible. Probably the best plan going forward is for the OP to have all 4 tires and rims tested for leaks in a dunk tank, any leaks from tires, rims, valve stems corrected, and then for the OP to monitor the tire pressure on a weekly basis using an accurate tire gauge until the tire pressure in all four tires measured is confirmed to be stable.
So the tires were leaking along the rim - or is it the rim is leaking along the tire? Doesn’t matter, you’ve discovered where the air is leaking. So they resealed the tire and replaced the valve. Good!
Yes, monitor the pressure for a a few weeks. In cold weather that’s a bit difficult, but see if you can figure out a way to do it.
Please report back on your results. We are always willing to learn how this stuff works - and in particular, what doesn’t.
Oh and GeorgeSanJose - we need to talk about tire “batches”. It’s obvious you aren’t familiar with tire manufacturing, but you are correct. A “bad batch” would not be the cause of this.
I bought brand new tires 11 months ago and within last few months, the front tires have been popping off the rim. Each mechanic i called to assist me or went to, said the same thing: the original place where you bought your tires, must’ve installed them wrong and I should take the car back to them for check up. I wanted to get the best opinion on it, and who’s at fault in here, so I went to my long time friend, who’s been a mechanic for past 30 years and has been working on all my cars, since 1998. So i trust him and his opinion. Not everyone will go above and beyond, to provide the best service, but he does. He lifted the car, inspected each tire, and realized that, none of the tires have any sealant inside. And here’s the problem. For better seal and airtight support, tires must have sealant inside at the time of installation. Even though, you’ll be keep adding more pressure, the air will be always escaping, until the sealant is applied to the inside of the tires. I will recommend my mechanic’s services to anyone, I was at several shops, and no one provided the service and solution to my car issues, as he did. Every time I was in the emergency situation, I was never near his shop, so the car was always inspected by mechanics, that I don’t know. Until I was passing by his shop, and he told me to come in if i have time and he will take care of me. Even when my sister was using my car and when she took it few times to her friends mechanics, they worked on the car many times, trying to figure out the problems, 3-4 of them worked on the vehicle. After they did the work, they told me to get in and drive it around and see how it sounds. I said you guys should do that, I’m not a mechanic, and I won’t know if it sounds better or worse. Their response was always, no no I’m dirty, it’s better if you do it. Or trying to pass it to any one of them, to test it. But nobody was willing to test it, if they did the job right. My mechanic said, you’re not the one that should be testing the car after the service. The mechanic who worked on the vehicle is responsible for checking, testing and providing you with any info, after the service was done. And that’s what Scott does. He drives around, listening to everything, drives on the side streets in between the cars, to hear the sound better, when bouncing off the vehicles parked on the side of the street. I don’t trust anyone else with my car.
I fully recommend him to anyone with car troubles, that lives in the northern part of Chicago area.
First of all Kezzie has not been here for 6 years . Second you are being fed a bunch of malarkey . If your vehicle has the tire pressure monitor system that putting any kind of sealant in is wrong. Why are you calling mechanics when you should be talking to the original tire shop ?
Tires popping off is caused by low tire pressure or the wrong size tires most of the time.
I remember this one but I’m not going to go back and re-read the whole thing. All I can say is I have never had a shop put some kind of sealer inside new tires-never. The only time bead sealer has been used is when leaks with steel wheels have developed along the rim. Then the shop has cleaned the rust off the wheel and used bead sealer. But never any kind of general sealer on a tire and I have gone through a lot of tires. To be sure though you don’t want to drive on tires with low low pressure especially in the winter.
Sorry, but Scott is wrong. One doesn’t need bead sealant for EVERY tire mounting- after all, none of the vehicle manufacturers use it. The only time one needs it is if the wheels are corroded.
So if it took 8 or so months to get to the point where enough air has leaked out that the tire has popped off the rim, that’s a pretty slow leak and someone should have checked the pressure in those 8 or so months and noted that this needed fixing BEFORE that happened.