[rihan01234]

Thanks a lot for posting this article. I cannot emphasise more on how important it is to be aware of the causes for tyre burst. Once nice evening I was driving my lancer, climbing a not so steep hill, doing about 60-70 kph. Suddenly the front tyre burst. I was able to slowly decelerate and pull over . Luckily nothing bad happened due to my low speed. There was a minor cut on the tyre which I ignored before starting my journey.

Hopefully this post opens up your eyes to two important things from my experience..

1. Drive slow
2. Always check the tyre for cuts/bulges before starting your journey, everytime !!!

[sumathindra]

One query, I guess no question is stupid when it comes to such a situation. The question is " How often should the air filling be managed in tyres? "

[suhaas307]

Excellent thread gentlemen!

Just the sort of thread I needed to read a few days before doing our annual 1400 km Bangalore - Goa round-trip!

I remember having an argument with the friend on this point:

Myth 1: "High tyre pressures are what cause tyre bursts!"

This is NOT the cause. What causes most bursts is not the air pressure in the tyre, but the excessive flexing of sidewalls due to low inflation pressure. This flexing not only generates heat (via additional friction), but also wears and weakens the tyre - eventually leading to a tyre failure (blowout!). It's better to be 4 psi over recommended pressures than 4 psi under it. Especially when traveling at high speeds or with heavy loads.

I'll be sure to provide him with a link to this thread.

Q:

What are the repercussions of filling 4 psi over the recommend pressure?

[shipnil]

Thanks for the informative article!

I am always worried about this aspect while on highways which is twice every week. So far haven't faced any blowout or puncture but have read many accidents hence the worry part. Even I was under the impression that over inflation will cause blow out. Thanks for clarifying that!

I have a question on this. Figo minimum / maximum air pressures are too far apart. I am always in the dilemma about what should I do as 80% of the time I am alone and rest with family (read loaded). Ford recommends 30 front, back if you are alone and 36/41 when the car is loaded. Till now I used to maintain 30, but I think I have to increase it a bit, may be 33 front and back. Any suggestions?

[Samurai]

I have had a tyre burst under me once, back in 1997. I was on a 12-lane stretch of NJ garden state parkway, doing around 50mph. It was the front right tyre. The tyre burst because of the following reason.



The wheel alignment was totally off and I didn't know enough to recognise it. So the inside edge of the tyre got worn off till the steel radials and tyre got burst.

The passenger side suddenly dropped by few inches, creating a tilt. And the car slowed down a lot. I was stunned and slowly brought the car to a halt in the same lane. I was in the 4th lane from the shoulder. This was a stupid mistake, I should have changed lanes and stopped only reaching the shoulder. But the sudden listing of the vehicle made me abandon all logic. My passenger (colleague) got down and reported that the right tyre was flat.

Then we did our second mistake. Both of us, while keeping the front doors open, started pushing the vehicle from the 4th lane to the shoulder using our human power. Meanwhile, hundreds of vehicles were flowing past us, somehow avoiding us. This was peak hour traffic. There was a toll booth 200m ahead of us, therefore most of the cars were already slowing down, that probably saved us. We made it to the shoulder in one piece.

When the front tyre bursts, the first thing that happens is tilting/listing to one side. You can safely assume that as a tyre burst. Then follow the instructions provided by GTO in the first post.

The rear tyre bursting is not really dangerous. That too has happened to me. A sudden whirring noise started in the back, after many more miles of driving I decide to check it. When I went around the car to investigate the noise, I discovered the flat tyre that caused by a L shaped metal piece.

[Surprise]

Thanks...thanks a lot for this thread. I never knew that slowing down will cause such a damage in case of burst/sudden deflation

Originally Posted by GTO

It is recommended to take a break after every 90 - 120 minutes of driving. ....but also allow the tyres, brakes, clutch etc. to cool down.

I always replace tyres when there is decent amount of thread & all my tyres are upsized (195). Mostly I do non-stop drives to the extent of 5-6 hrs..Will there be of any issues on the mechanical front?


BTW, how important is the size of the sidewall (55 vs 60)? Lower the sidewall higher the chances of burst in case of any issues? (lower pressure)

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Myth 1: "High tyre pressures are what cause tyre bursts!"

This is NOT the cause. What causes most bursts is not the air pressure in the tyre, but the excessive flexing of sidewalls due to low inflation pressure. This flexing not only generates heat (via additional friction), but also wears and weakens the tyre - eventually leading to a tyre failure (blowout!). It's better to be 4 psi over recommended pressures than 4 psi under it. Especially when traveling at high speeds or with heavy loads.

I too was under this impression until I learnt from this forum long back...luckily before I stated to do my highway trips

[Thilak29]

I experienced a tire burst while travelling in a KSRTC bus mid summer last year.
Left tire on the front side exploded and bus tilted to that side and started move left uncontrollably. This happened in the middle of a crowded town and bus was running in mediocre speed. I was glad that no one was hurt and driver put all his effort to ensure he does not hit any parked vehicles on the sides of the road.

[SDP]

Fantastic article and some really new points! Thanks GTO.

I didn't know that under-inflated tyres carry a bigger risk of blow-out.

Most of us think, crashes are the real killer. From that perspective, tyre-burst is a silent killer that we typically tend to underestimate.

[supremeBaleno]

Informative article, GTO.

Originally Posted by rajeev k

5 years or 40000 km is rightly the limit. I have had experience in my Swift with the JKs. Though the tyres clocked only 31K kms it was more than 5 years old and one of the tyres lost shape which

IIRC these are JK Vectras and we had the same issue on our Swift. So did many others when I created a thread about it. This was the only instance of tyres deforming that I have come across in 25+ years of using cars and which makes me think it is a brand/model specific thing, than about the age of the tyres.

Originally Posted by Samurai

The wheel alignment was totally off and I didn't know enough to recognise it. So the inside edge of the tyre got worn off till the steel radials and tyre got burst.

Noticed the same inner-edge wearing off in my sister's M800 recently. One tyre-care tip that would help detect such situations is a tyre rotation every 5K kms - not sure if it was listed by GTO. Keeps the tyres healthy and the owner too (good exercise - takes me around 1 hour of sweating to rotate the tyres).

[speedsatya]

Superb ! Thanks for this .

My weekend car cleaning exercise always involves checking the tires for bulges/cuts/foreign particles in between grooves... Also , investing in a good footpump with an accurate gauge is a must . For me ,saturdays or holidays are the days when I check tire pressure . Its just not possible to do it on crowded weekdays
Having only a tire pressure gauge will not help .

[Jeroen]

There is no doubt that a blow out can be a frightening experience. On the other hand, modern cars are pretty hard to unsettle as well.

Twice I've suffered a complete deflated tyre whilst driving. Not necessarily a full blow out, but a full deflation and by the time I stopped the respective tyre was completely deflated and had started to desintegrated from driving it at a highway speeds.

First time was in my Audi A6 and it was the right front tire. I was on a motorway, doing about 70 mph, in pretty heavy rain. I only noticed when i came of the highway and made it right turn, at the exit. Luckily at that point I wasn't going very fast, as the car oversteered. Although initially I thought it was just the rain/water on the road, I decided to pull over. Tyre was completely deflated and to hot to touch. Due to the extreme heat build up of driving it deflated it had started disintegrating from the inside out.

Second time was the left rear on my Jaguar XJR. This time I did notice, because I hit a huge piece of rock on the highway doing 70 mph. Again, the car drover fine, however I did notice a different nois/sound so I decided to pull over and check. Same result as with the Audi, completely deflated and smoking hot!

Interestingly enough, in both cases, as long as I had continued driving on a motorway/highway straight road, in a modern very comfortable car, you might not even notice it at first. I guess you would notice a full blown tyre burst. But if the tyre deflates in the course of several minutes, you might not even notice.

That is, untill you need to brake hard, or take a corner. All of sudden you'll find yourself on three tyres instead of three.

Be carefull out there!

Jeroen

[leadf00t]

Great Article GTO and especially the carefully selected video to demonstrate what really happens.

I had my first tire blowout within 2 weeks of buying my lancer. I was loaded with 5 passengers and luggage and on the last stretch before exiting to pune on mumbai - pune expressway. Since it was barely two weeks with the car, I wasn't too confident and putting around 100 kmph. The tires were some crappy OEM tires with 65K on them. I was going to replace them soon and was on my research. The Blowout only sped up the change to the same evening.
I did hear a muffled thud inside the car , and felt a strange low rumble on the seat and steering. I slowed down gradually giving signals and pulled on the breakdown lane.
My rear left tire had blown. I was able to recover and stop without any drama.
I was on a long sweeping left turn but the reason what saved me were slow gradually braking, steady steering and stopping as soon as possible without trying to continue " kuch nahi hua" (nothing has happened) though in my mind.

From my experience
1) Indian road and not the smoothest esp concreate roads. So any wierd steering feelings/ wobbles, vibrations must be attended to and not Ignore. If you feel something on the steering, STOP , DO a visual check , run thorough check at your next halt. NEVER EVER ignore that " kuch nahi hua" . better safe than sorry.I have seen people drive on with flat tires without knowing something is really bad.
2) Always drive on highways holding steering with two hands. Esp in tire blowouts/puncture the second hand gives a lot of steering stability.
3) Unless in panic stops ( anticipating a collision/ RED Signal stops) , always slow down gradually with signals. You don't want to be rear ended behind or in the left lanes.

Drive safe and stay alert.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by GTO

Stability Control Programs (e.g. ESP) are lifesavers in a tyre burst situation. Consider this when shopping for your next car.

My next car will definitely have Extrasensory Perception (ESP) then!

Questions!

1) Do RWD cars like Mercedes/BMW behave differently when the front tyres burst at high speed? Are they safer than FWD cars in such situations?

2) What's the relation between tyre blowouts and SUV rollovers? How exactly does the former lead to the latter? Does it have anything to do with the SUV losing control, hitting the divider and then physics (high center of gravity) taking over?

[aditya116]

Thanks a lot for the post, never gave the possibility of having a tyre burst especially with tubeless ones much thought till sam's accident. But possibilities of having one on our roads littered with potholes and whatnot is quite disturbing. I had one at 50 ish kmph on an uphill section when an old truck blew its engine spewing cloud of smoke and damaged the tyre on this piece of part of metal support for signpost which had been knocked down.(while trying to move over to centre of road to maintain visibility) Later across kerala have seen many such metal ones lying at start of a median, some directed to one of the lanes.

[nitrous]

Nitrogen doesn't heat up like air does. So, it drastically reduces the chances of
So, fill up the tyres with nitrogen that is widely available at tyre stores and even some petrol pumps.