Son smacked a curb the other day and ruined one of the front tires. Had a new tire put on yesterday morning and this happened in the afternoon driving down the interstate. How in the world does a brand new tire totally rip off like this?
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Complete lack of air and ignoring the big red light on the dash saying LOW TIRE would cause that.
The air likely wandered out the crack in the wheel your son put in when he hit the curb. Tell him to pay attention to the road and not his phone.
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A tire shop can give a better guess but I think he drove on a tire that was very low on tire pressure or even flat . If this vehicle has TPS ( tire pressure system ) you need to show him what that light means . It might be a good idea to see if he has any idea what the other lights mean.
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No need to be ugly towards my son as he wasn’t on his phone but misjudged a curb in the parking lot at his work. I’m not sure you’ve understood the situation I described. This is a brand new tire that was put on yesterday morning to replace the one that was damaged. No warning lights or anything, literally just ripped off at 70 mph.
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Brand new tire installed yesterday morning, it was at proper pressure, no low tire indicators.
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I am not sure you understand what I posted…
So I will explain in greater detail… There was air IN the tire when it was mounted. The air LEFT the tire through some path. You son DROVE on an uninflated tire until it destroyed itself.
I personally could feel that lack of air pressure long before the tire destroyed itself. Obviously your son cannot. If this RX was built after edit:2007 it SHOULD have had a TPMS warning system on it from the factory and it SHOULD have warned the driver that the tire was low. Since you didn’t post the year of the RX, I can’t say whether it should have TPMS or not.
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There is also the possibility that the battery in that wheel sensor was already dead, and no low tire pressure signal was sent to the instrument panel. One more reason to replace TPMS units every 6-7 years, or when buying new tires?
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Tpms sensor batteries do die. And you will get low pressure warning. Yours was not illuminated? It was working. What does tire shop say about 24hr blowout? Ah, can’t be tire, it’s new. So, it was warrantied?
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This is just a guess–and for the OP’s sake I hope that I’m wrong–but I think it’s likely that the tire shop will find that driving with very low pressure caused the sidewall to “rub itself out”, and as a result no warranty coverage.
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It is possible that the battery(s) died long ago and the TPMS warning light had been lit up for a long time. That would mean no “new” warning of low tire pressure. Not very different from a CEL being lit-up for a long time, and the driver not knowing that an additional problem has cropped-up.
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Chris,
Welcome to the forum.
Sorry about the assumptions and finger pointing.
To answer your question the tire was driven on with very low air pressure, no blame just what happens.
I have witnessed this hundreds of times, while maintaining vehicles in a large fleet.
It can happen very quickly, I was very surprised to see the sidewall damage done when a tire went flat from a large puncture and the vehicle was immediately (100 yards) pulled to the shoulder of the interstate. This can happen quickly!
I have seen many experienced professionally trained drivers ruin a tire by driving with low air pressure.
When you say “your son” no matter what his age some people here will assume the typical “teen age boy”. Could be a response to our younger days and the choices made back then. But we do not know how old you or your son are (you could be 75 and your son 50). And assumptions are made to fit our own narrative.
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to be fair, I did that in my old Focus because the sensors were $50 a piece before labor and that system was (I believe) an indirect system so I would’ve had to replace all 4. But I also checked my pressures about every 2 weeks when I do my Saturday morning oil and fluid checks on the car. Plus I check when the temperature has large fluctuations.
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If we didn’t know better the picture sort of looks like a cap came off like back when recaps were a popular thing.
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I left it with them upon returning home to check out and get back with me. It’s a 2005 and I would hope that if the wheel was cracked that they would have sourced that prior to just putting a new tire on and calling it good.
It’s a 2005 and this could certainly be plausible but I would have expected the shop to source this prior to slapping a new tire on and calling it good. Still waiting to hear from them after having dropped off the shredded tire and wheel yesterday. Also oldest daughter was driving and said didn’t notice anything unusual prior. Will be interesting to see what they say for sure.
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Since you don’t have the tire you can’t inspect the tread for punctures but the tire shop will. The tires we sell come with 2 year road hazard warranty, did your tire come with a road hazard warranty?
The RX330 has an indirect tire pressure monitor. We can all see from the picture there is no tire pressure sensor, therefore no possibility of dead batteries.
The tire pressure monitor can take 2 hours to calibrate so it can’t be relied on in this case, unlikely to have a warning light for low tire pressure.
I do the same thing, but without a functioning TPMS, I likely wouldn’t know about a sudden pressure loss while driving until the handling started to get funky.
Please return to this thread to update us on the verdict from the tire shop.
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@chrisfreemanca_176902 Chris , your replies are seen by everyone so no need to reply to each post .
Edit: I have seen wheels that would hold air after a new tire but would flex just enough when driving to let air escape.
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Low tire pressure is the cause of that problem and maybe that wheel should be very carefully inspected since there was a curb strike.
It could possibly have deformed the wheel a bit and it may not be noticeable to the naked eye. Even with a bead inspection after tire mounting it may not show a leak.
Bought a new set of tires once and one started going down every week. Inspection showed the tire would leak at the bead only if the wheel was at rest in a certain position with the weight of the car on it. In this case, only with the valve stem at the 8 o’clock position.
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