Blowout On Motorway

[jay dh]

Yesterday, my mate was driving him and i to Wimbledon and on the way at 85mph, we heard a pop and the car sunk and shook violently :censor: , wobbled a little but he had control, we looked at each other and then i look in the rear mirror to see smoke bellowing from the car. We pulled onto the hard shoulder while other cars were telling us we had a puncture (really?).

Luckily the services were 1 mile away so we drove slowly there. jacked up the car to see the damage and there was a tiny hole on the outside of the rear nearside tyre, so he grabbed it to take the wheel off and he fell back cos of how hot it was! Waited a couple of mins, took it off and half of the tyre side wall on the inner side had ripped!

Luckily we were ok, changed tyre, checked the pressure’s all round and off on our way...i have never seen a tyre ripped that badly before, very lucky me thinks. below is the tyre which also had holes on the other side...

ive seen other cars have a blowout on the motorway and its always been at the back of my mind happening to me.

anyone else had something like this happen to them?

[Stu8]

lucky escape there fellas

when I had a blow out; I was thrown onto the hardshoulder and nearly half way up the grass bank of the motorway....

i just thank my lucky stars it threw onto the hardshoulder and not into the traffic

[JAHill]

lucky one there! Never had it myself but a tyre came off of my van once when I was driving around a roundabout and that was scary enough at just 30mph! 85mph?

[cfc1]

I see this type of damage on tyres EVERYDAY of the week. Not all are caused by a "blowout" though, some are just straight forward punctures that aren't noticed and the driver keeps on going. (In your case the "pop" is a sign that something gave way rather quickly.. either a fault/bulge in the tyrewall or a large piece of shrapnel on the road)

They wall of the tyres get torn to shreads because the weight of the car forces the wheel rim onto it...

...but its the heat that causes the most damage. When the tyres get really hot they start disintegrating from the inside 1st, if the driver stops before the outside goes he may think that the puncture is repairable and take it to a garage to try to get it repaired.. it's only when the tyre is removed from the wheel that they see the inside of the tyre is now in powder form (a bit like the marbles you see on race tracks.. only finer)

The more the tyre is driven on the outside of the wall starts to fall apart too resulting in what you show in the picture. Keep going a little longer and the tread of the tyres would begin to self destruct......

....and eventually become completley detached from both sidewalls leaving only them on the wheel.. and trying to get them off the rim is a wee bit difficult (there is no tread to support the wall when trying to break the bead.. the bead breaker just keeps slipping off)

As well as a spare wheel in the boot.. when you get a really BIG blowout....

.. a spare pair of these can come in handy.... just incase something else lets go too.

[Jones~32]

Just as well your mate kept the car under control

Could've been a lot worse :!Removed!: Just hope it never happens to me

[Demonic Angel]

Sounds petrifying mate, glad you kept it under control, if it'd been me, I'd have needed several new pair of Doctor Whos!!

[jay dh]

lucky one there! Never had it myself but a tyre came off of my van once when I was driving around a roundabout and that was scary enough at just 30mph! 85mph?

we know how lucky we were

i wouldnt wish it on anyone to have this happen to them!

I see this type of damage on tyres EVERYDAY of the week. Not all are caused by a "blowout" though, some are just straight forward punctures that aren't noticed and the driver keeps on going. (In your case the "pop" is a sign that something gave way rather quickly.. either a fault/bulge in the tyrewall or a large piece of shrapnel on the road)

They wall of the tyres get torn to shreads because the weight of the car forces the wheel rim onto it...

...but its the heat that causes the most damage. When the tyres get really hot they start disintegrating from the inside 1st, if the driver stops before the outside goes he may think that the puncture is repairable and take it to a garage to try to get it repaired.. it's only when the tyre is removed from the wheel that they see the inside of the tyre is now in powder form (a bit like the marbles you see on race tracks.. only finer)

The more the tyre is driven on the outside of the wall starts to fall apart too resulting in what you show in the picture. Keep going a little longer and the tread of the tyres would begin to self destruct......

....and eventually become completley detached from both sidewalls leaving only them on the wheel.. and trying to get them off the rim is a wee bit difficult (there is no tread to support the wall when trying to break the bead.. the bead breaker just keeps slipping off)

As well as a spare wheel in the boot.. when you get a really BIG blowout....

.. a spare pair of these can come in handy.... just incase something else lets go too.

those pics are a bit scary

what happened was the wall of the tyre had some sort of rough peeling on the edge all the way round, i know this is a sign of wear but dont know why

we knew what to do, if only we knew the sign of a blowout we may have been able to prevent it, oh well! made an interesting story

[Kev Mc]

That could have been so much worse, glad you's escaped with just a done-in wheel & story to tell

[cfc1]

those pics are a bit scary

what happened was the wall of the tyre had some sort of rough peeling on the edge all the way round, i know this is a sign of wear but dont know why

we knew what to do, if only we knew the sign of a blowout we may have been able to prevent it, oh well! made an interesting story

What do you mean "rough peeling on the edge"? was the tyre worn on one edge of the tread? or did he sidewall have a kind of groove cut into it? or maybe its just that the wall had been scuffed against a kerb? may be able to answer why/how it happened

[dazwan]

I've only had one blow out and that was enough. I was only doing 70mph on the A1, luckily it was empty as I heard the pop, wondered what the noise was (as I barely heard it over the music) and then the back end just started sliding all over the place. Thankfully I managed to hold it, but after that I never play my music too loud and it's one of the reasons I don't like to drive above 70. I'm guessing the fact that I had a car full of stuff as I was coming home from Uni really didn't help the handling, that and the fact it was a Skoda!!! (an old estelle, so all the weight was in the rear over the blown out tyre)

In my case the puncture was clearly some debris that literally just cut through the tirewall and took a great big gouge out of the alloy as well!

I'm amazed your mate managed to get it onto the hard shoudler at 85mph! I'm also amazed the people in the middle lane let you through!

[jay dh]

those pics are a bit scary

what happened was the wall of the tyre had some sort of rough peeling on the edge all the way round, i know this is a sign of wear but dont know why

we knew what to do, if only we knew the sign of a blowout we may have been able to prevent it, oh well! made an interesting story

What do you mean "rough peeling on the edge"? was the tyre worn on one edge of the tread? or did he sidewall have a kind of groove cut into it? or maybe its just that the wall had been scuffed against a kerb? may be able to answer why/how it happened

it was the sidewall that had not neccessarily a groove but a mark on it all the way round so if u rub that mark, the tyre peels off in miniscule bits

I'm amazed your mate managed to get it onto the hard shoudler at 85mph! I'm also amazed the people in the middle lane let you through!

yea, he did well to hold it. he just started to slow down and indicated left then moved into the lane, didnt wait for a good gap!

[clarky]

I had a blowout in the yaris on the way to work at one stage - the back end went down suddenly and steering became a real issue. It was on the M1 around toddington (J12). Got the wheel changed and was at work dirty, but ok.

However coming back from northampton to bucks a bit further north the missus and I were following a line of fast traffic in the outside lane (more than 70mph).

An almera was in front and we had both already commented how low it was sitting because of the five bodies in it. The missus was changing cds when I saw the almera lurch in front of us then correct. I said to the missus that I thought he'd had a blowout - she didnt believe me until almost immediately the started to swing about all over the place.

I dropped off the gas for obvious reasons but couldnt change lane for other traffic. This went on for what could only have been 5 secs before the almera lurched hard right towards the central reservation then bouned and started to turn.

I knew I couldnt stop and was just able to squeeze through past it as it slammed harder into the anco then went straight over all three carriageways and into the ditch at the side of the hard shoulder. We got across and onto the shoulder and gradually bled the speed off and stopped.

I looked and looked in the mirror but couldnt see anyone moving - we reversed up the hardshoulder a bit - but I didnt want to get too close. A couple of other cars had stopped but they just drove off again.

I got the missus onto the phone to the police and she did her best to call it in (she was fairly upset). Less than a minute later the police rangerover came onto the hard shoulder behind us and showered us in grit... suffice to say they'd been travelling...

All five of the people from the almera were fine - took us about 3 cups of tea and a couple of pairs of clean undies to get back to normal. Few nightmare for a day or two then normal.

[cfc1]

it was the sidewall that had not neccessarily a groove but a mark on it all the way round so if u rub that mark, the tyre peels off in miniscule bits

Sounds like it could have had a slow puncture (maybe previously repaired?) and had ben run on slightly soft.. this could have damaged the wall and caused the outer "skin" to start to peel (the skin is more noticeable on retreaded tyres) or.. it may have at one point been fouling on the wheel arch causing the same type of damage.

But my guess is.. the tyre started to go soft (maybe picked up a small nail or something) and the wall got damaged because of the low pressure, and then "pop" it gives up totaly due to the excess heat that builds up when a tyre is running soft.. blowout (of sorts).

[Leeky]

Glad to hear you and your mate are ok dude Blowouts are serious bad stuff

[Blue84]

:o sounds very scary, I'd be terrified if it happened to me