OT Has anyone had a blow-out at 65 MPH

[micky]

OT Has anyone had a blow-out at 65 MPH?

I've had one, in about 1972. I'd driven from NYC to Columbus Ohio to visit a friend, and she had a class in Cincinatti that evening. I drove, but coming back I was too tired and she drove.

She owned a tiny car, and when we got back and she was parking like she usually did, she just drove head-in to her parallel parking space and whacked the front right tire sidewall when she hit the curb.

The next day I left around noon and a half hour later on the interstate, while I was passing a semi, I heard a tire blow (loudly, I guess because the noise reflected off the truck).

But had it not been for the noise, I wouldn't have known there was a problem. The car didn't shake or quiver, from start to when it was parked, and I slowed down and pulled to the shoulder, and changed the tire.

Yet today a big bus, one with no hood I think, had a blowout and went all the way across the 10 or 20 foot median, with grass and a dip in the middle, to hit a car and truck.

My tire was tubeless. If he had a tube, would that make it harder to control?

Was my situation a lucky fluke?

Has anyone here ever had a blowout at high speed? How did the car handle?

[Erik]

Never had a blowout, but one dark night did have a rear axle fail and let the RR drum/wheel/tire separate from an old Corvair. We were in CA going about 70 mph N bound on Pacific Coast highway a little N of Paradise Cove. c. 1973 or there about.

The rear end dropped down a little, and I was at once 'dazzled' by a remarkably bright shower of orange sparks in the mirrors.

Other than that, it remained very stable... I had a suspicion something like that had happened, got off the gas and let it coast down. When it was down to maybe 15 mph or so i gently eased it off to the right shoulder. There was a .5" X .5" scar in the pavement going way back... we looked a little but never found the drum/tire/wheel.

A cop finally came by and gave us a lift.

The car belonged to a friend (who was with me) and was a junker long before that trip. They towed it but I think he said he just let them sell it off at auction. I was driving only because I'd never driven a Corvair... and asked if I could.

There are a countless stability variables come blowout/flat time... no two are the same...

Erik

[tom]

A coworker flipped his SUV after the front tire blew at 75mph. He spent several weeks in the hospital.

He may have been talking or texting on a cell phone so that may have played a part in the severity of the accident.

(There's a whole lot of lying that goes on after a traffic accident.)

[Stormin Mormon]

I picked up a nail, left rear of my Chevrolet work van. I was on a freeway, doing about 55. By the time I pulled over, the sidewalls on both sides had sheared, really strange. There was some rubber on the rim, and it was clear that the tread was no longer connected to the rim.

Not sure what I felt or heard, to tell me that the tire was out. Can't remember.

I'd not got a spare, but I had a dummy tire that I got from Freecycle. I called AAA, to get a vehicle with lights behind me, the traffic was a bit too fast, and a bit too close. The dummy tire didn't fit the rear drum, so the called a different vehicle and flatbedded me home.

The next day I spent a lot of time jacking, removing, and take the wheel to Walmart, for warranty replace. Cost me about ten hours of time with AAA and Walmart, and $2.50 disposal fee for the old tire. I'm very fortunate that I did get the road hazzard warranty.

. Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

.

[gfretwell]

I hit a 2x4 steel angle laying on the interstate one night and cracked the rim of a mag wheel doing 75 or so although I may have slowed a little before the actual impact. The Right front tire was gone. It was exciting but I didn't lose control of my van. (E150)

I still have the angle. Is makes a decent redneck metal break.

I think most people end up rolling cars because they over react to the blowout and do something that is too aggressive with the brakes or steering. Admittedly I saw it coming and knew I would have to be driving the car for a few seconds instead of just pointing it down the road.

[David L. Martel]

Micky,

Not a blowout but I did pick up a nail in the front passenger tire going

65 mph. It was very noisy and the car shook badly, a Chevy Citation. It handled well until under 5 mph. It was very hard to control then. Pulled to the right. Changed the flat and had the flat repaired at my usual tire store.

Dave M.

[dpb]

Quite a few people have, I'm sure... :)

...

I've had at least a couple I recall -- neither was terribly difficult to control because in both cases the tire basically held together. The biggest problem that used to be far more prevalent than now with old bias-ply tires was that the tire would completely disintegrate and drop a metal rim onto the pavement. If it were the front end, that could make steering a vehicle w/o PS (of which there are almost none today, either) quite a handful. Add a little panic and mayhem often ensued.

No current large semis or buses use anything but tubeless any more so I'd be _very_ surprised it it were anything but on the vehicle in TN. I've not heard but I'd presume it must have been a front and it's possible he was already in a bind when it happened by being in the process of changing lanes or something else...being a church activity bus I'd presume that the odds are pretty good the driver probably didn't have a tremendous amount of experience behind the wheel but was a volunteer or associate pastor or somesuch individual who just happened to hold a CDL only for the specific purpose and not a professional driver.

That's a _very_ dangerous section of interstate -- it's terribly congested and folks drive well in excess of posted limits and there's the I-81 split that gets unwary in a bind when the discover they're about to miss the lane they need to be in heading east and a merge if heading south/west...possibly somebody cut the bus off or it needed a lane change in a hurry or something else had a major impact on the resultant severity as well.

[Higgs Boson]

[...]

Had one many years ago. Was in the FAST lane on a freeway. Terrified! People were cooperative, allowing me to move over till I could exit at an off-ramp.

Never HEARD of "drift" though I broke in on a VW.

Looked it up at

OMG. I do not have the motor skills to master it. Just hope that SHE will protect me if it ever happens again.

HB

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per micky:

Probably going 50 mph in a heavily-loaded (2-weeks vacation worth of stuff and 3 occupants) Suburban.

Left rear wheel.

Similar experience to yours. Heavy crosswinds, so I thought it was just the wind until another driver called my attention to it.

But it was a dead-straight highway.

I'm thinking maybe on a curve.... or if it were a front wheel...

[Harry K]

I got into one on a dark night in Texas. Grew up and learned to drive living on a farm in Northern Idaho. Did a lot of "fun" things on the snow covered gravel roads so a drift was familiar.

I was dicing with another car over a fairly familiar paved highway in my almost new Volvo PV544, went into a sharp right hand corner to discover there was gravel across it. Drifted it but the seat cover had a permanent wrinkle from the "pucker factor".

Harry K

[krw]

Sure.

No, it depends on which tire, the car, and the suspension.

My experiences have been like yours. It really comes down to which tire blows. If a FWD car with a very heavy front end blows a rear tire, you may never know you're driving a tricycle. ;-) If it's a front, you probably found out too late. A RWD and a rear tire is less of an issue because the steering isn't compromised. The bottom line, it depends.

[Ashton Crusher]

Most recent was a 2005 Crown Vic with the OEM Pirelli tires on it. At about 27,000 miles one of the tires on the front blew out the sidewall. Could hardly tell other then I could "feel something" so stopped to see what it was. Then at 28,000 miles one of the Pirellis on the back had it's sidewall blow out. Same thing, I started to "feel something" and stopped to see what it was. Decided not to wait for the other two Pirellis to blow out and replaced them all with some other well known brand like Goodyear. The Pirellis always road glass smooth but the new tires definitely were not as smooth riding, always felt a little out of balance. Don't know if it was the tires or just that they weren't balanced quite right - it was a company car with work done at the company garage.

In the past when I've had blowouts I've never had anything exciting happen, just start to feel "something" and stop to see what. Not saying a blowout couldn't case someone a problem but in my experience it never has. There was also a test done with a Ford explorer due to all the claims of tire and rollover problems with it and they blew out it's tires with the driver's hands completely off the wheel and nothing exciting happened, the SUV just started drifting off course slowly with the one flat tire. I believe they did it on both a front tire and rear and could never get it to do anything exciting. I'm of the general opinion that almost all "crashes from a tire blowing out" are due to the driver not being very good at handling the slightest unexpected event and over reacting and causing the accident.

[gregz]

I was driving a datsun b210 going 65 . Up to the right, tire and axle separated from trailer. 4 lanes, the things direction was uncertain. I kept to the left, kept up speed. I was scared, but finally passed it.

Greg

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Bob F:

No go-kart experience, but when I was a kid I use to make a point out of finding an empty supermarket parking lot and throwing the car into skids

- especially with snow on the ground.

I think I eventually got skid control pretty well burned into my lower brain stem - and wonder why something like that isn't SOP with any driver training program.

[clare]

Lost the left rear wheel and drum on an MGB at about 60. Not a lot of drama

[cjt]

In the late '60's, I had a ball joint break at about that speed.

As a result, a front tire went under the car (still attached,

sort-of) and I was all over 8-mile in Detroit (a nice wide

road at that point). Luckily, it was about 3:00 a.m., so there

was no traffic, and I managed to bring the car to a halt without

hitting anything. There wasn't much left of the tire.

[Erik]

10 or 15 years ago, I was on the 405 in Los Angeles... traffic was heavy, but still going fast. About 70.

I was in the #2 lane (second from the left) when a car just ahead in one of the far right lanes busted a LF ball joint. In the blink of an eye he came flying across the freeway creating this enormous 'ball' of sliding wreckage, that quickly morphed into sort of a big 'comma' shape, with me right in the middle. The hole was drifting around as it slowed down, and I was steering & breaking to stay within... we were all moving basically the same speed, and I remember everyone looking around at each other as we ground to a halt. Also remember looking in the mirror prepared to be mowed down from behind, but luckily it didn't happen. Lots of tire smoke and misc debris. The car with the busted ball joint spent a few seconds in front of me... and I just knew that must have been the cause. Remember being briefly worried about the flailing tucked under wheel breaking loose and coming through my windshield.

I was extremely lucky... had zero contact other cars or debris.

Erik

[The Daring Dufas]

Some years ago, I was driving through what is known as "Malfunction Junction" in downtown Birmingham when a movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention. It was a large Ingersoll Rand towed air compressor passing me while it flipped end over end at a speed of 60mph. Super pucker factor! The next day, a state highway department crew was out patching the divot holes the trailer hitch had dug into the concrete at regular intervals. ^_^

TDD

[bob haller]

my cars BRAND NEW tire blew out right after installation on the pa turnpike i was going at least 60....

fortunately no close by cars, my car swerved bad, but i managed to get it to the berm. it was very scary...

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Bob F:

There was a rip in the sidewall that went from the rim to about an inch from the tread.