Modern Tires: Modern Miracles

10yrs ago, knock on wood.....

 

Last summer, on my way home from Canada, I got a sudden flat while driving 60 mph on a two-lane highway. Thanks to the Prius's electronics, I never lost control. But I could not get the jack settled right, under the car, and could not get the lug nuts off, and in the end had to wait for a good samaritan to stop and help me. It was a Sunday, so nothing open for 100 miles in any direction. The tire was a Michelin HydroEdge with maybe 10 or 12 thousand miles on it. Practically new. Hardly any visible tread wear. I don't blame Michelin. It was a freak occurrence: a bit of metal was thrown up by the front tire, causing it to lodge between the treads of the rear tire.

Last flat before that was a couple of years earlier, in Fargo in the middle of winter. Don't remember if I had the Michelins then, or if it was still the OEMs. I didn't even try to change it. At 20 below zero I called a wrecker to come change it for me, and I gave him a $20 tip for coming out when it was cold enough to freeze spit before it hit the ground.

 

10 years ago, I remember getting enough flats with my K-car that I could change a tire in 5 minutes. I got pretty good at repairing the punctures too

 

No 'blow outs' or all out flats, but just this 4th of July, I had my tenth nail in one of my tires. I am tired of that. Oh, and laugh all you want, but the nitro in my tire slowed the leak so much, that when I rolled in, the tire was still mostly inflated.

I even took a scan of the nail. Here it is, in full size.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TJandGENESIS @ Jul 6 2007, 11:27 PM) [snapback]474519[/snapback]</div>

Without an identical control puncture, how do you know the nitrogen slowed the leak? Maybe this one was just slow on its own. Even if you timed the leak, then let all the nitro out and re-filled it with air and timed the leak again, it could have changed its characteristics due to the flexing of the tire as it was deflated and re-inflated.

 

How about last night!

Awoke this morning to a flat. Aired it up, peeked around, and promptly found -- and heard -- the source of the leak: a hole the size of a large nail or something near the edge of the tread. Unrepairable, in other words. And too large for the tire to hold air long enough to get to the tire dealer.

I had planned on buying new tires before winter anyway. I was hoping to get about 5K more on the OEMs. In addition, I figured well-worn Integritys would be perfect for the Hybridfest MPG Challenge.

Oh, well, at least I'll have what I expect to be improved ride and handling from brand new Hydroedges.

Meanwhile, have any of you Prius owners ever looked at your donut spare?? I never had. They obviously keep the outside of the wheel face down in the spare wheel well for a reason. Look at this butt-ugly thing:



The tire itself is homely enough, but at least with that form follows function. I figure they use that horrendous color as a constant visual reminder -- for those that are too ignorant to know otherwise -- to get it off the car ASAP. How sad. And hideous!

I've never seen anything but black donut wheels before. Is this just a Prius thing? A Toyota thing? A trend among all newer cars?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jul 7 2007, 10:13 AM) [snapback]474608[/snapback]</div>

Having been through this before, with nails of similar size and shape, but with regular air, this time the tire did not decrease in size as rapidly.

Based on my previous experience of ten punctures. I admit, it's not very scientific, but so what.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JimboK @ Jul 7 2007, 11:04 AM) [snapback]474620[/snapback]</div>

Sorry about that, but I think you 'hit the nail on the head', so to speak, as to why it's butt ugly: So as to remind you of the spare being on, and to remove it soon.

 

I've had two flats in the last year. One during baseball October playoffs (I watched a Mets/Dodgers game in the Sears Auto Center and another customer kept trying to change it to soaps, AIIE!) and once about 3 months ago.

Unfortunately I live in a high-construction area. I never got flats in the 80s and 90s, but since moving to SoCal in '96 I've gotten 5. Only one blowout, though.

 

In the last year two flats for me (one drywall screw one piece of construction debris). Five for my wife, including three in three weeks each requiring a new tire.

Doesn't seem to be much decrease in frequency on this end.

 

I had a leak and didn't notice. The tire never went "flat". I did, however, notice the mileage dipping.

One tire was down to 10 psi. Put air in and checked it every day. It was losing about 5 psi a day. Took it in and there was a nail in it.

But the tire never went flat. If it weren't for checking the mileage who know how long it would have taken me to notice. It just didn't look flat or that much different than the other tires.

 

The last blowout I had was one of those memorable, life flashing moments... I was traveling 80mph on I5 just north of Buttonwillow. I had pulled out to pass a string of semis - they travel in clumps on I5 - when an extremely aggressive Semi driver started riding right up my a$%. I found a gap in the herd of trucks to pull over into - leaving me boxed on three sides by semis as the rear drivers tire blew out. To this day, we don't know what caused it - we assume something sharp, but who knows.

The point of the story? It reinforced a theory I had already - don't buy cheap tires. In the time that it took me to slow down from 70mph and find a place to pull over, while not smacking into any trucks, the sidewalls of the tire were a smoking, melted mass of rubber - but the tires held together. They didn't fail catastrophically and disintegrate, in fact, the rims were undamaged.

I am convinced that the fact that I paid a bit of a premium for high mileage, high quality tires saved me from a much more serious problem, turning a potential disaster into a fun filled afternoon in Buttonwillow.

 

I've got a slow leak right now on one of my factory tires. It goes flat every 2 weeks, so if I inflate it once a week it'll hold until I can get off my butt and get it taken care of.

 

A couple of slow leaks in the past few years... only one flat in the past 10 though, on my old car 3-4 years ago.

 

Weird, but I've been having the opposite thoughts many days in the last few months on the tollway.

Why in the year 2007 do we have so many semi truck tires with the outside thick rubber part coming off and laying all over the road. When I had my F250, I try to go around them or let them pass under.... So far, I haven't had to go over center on one with the prius, but if I ever do, I imagine it will destroy the front cowling and who knows how much damage on the way under.

in the last 15 months, 57k miles on the prius, I had one screw in the tire where I had to go have the shop do a patch job. Then, one day when I got home I had a 'click - click - click - click' going on as I went up the driveway. Knowing that wasn't a good sound, I estimated about 1/2 revolution past that last click and went to find 3/4th of a utility knife razor blade sticking out of one of the tires.

I planned for changing it out after I took the blade out, but apparently it didn't go in far enough to cause a leak. I'm sure the integrity of the 'integrity' is damaged, but I'm still going on it.

There are tire changers every day in the morning and at night on the tollways around here. Leaves me wondering why the tires aren't better these days than this. Especially the semi tires..

 

Having driven a truck for a couple years I think that they are retreaded tires that fail at a higher rate than normal tires and that they have been around for a while and are nothing new. We called them gators.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Gak @ Jul 11 2007, 11:41 AM) [snapback]476881[/snapback]</div>

I guess it's only a matter of time until someone dies from a retread coming apart and a huge lawsuit or class action to either force the retreading process to improve or banning retreading all together.

 

I had one about a month ago in my Prius. Driving to work on rt288 and I think I hit something in the road and the low pressure light came. Big suprise to me pulled off the highway and before I could get the jack out a state trooper pulls over with lights flashing and he helps me change the tire (big suprise!). The prius handles odd with the mini on.