Seriously, I have no other words for what happened. I was going about 50 in a 4 lane road in the right lane and hit something... I didn't see it, didn't think much of it at first but almost immediately felt something was wrong with the back end.

I used the reflectors in the middle of the lanes to figure out which side it was quickly then pulled over (it was the driver's side). I got out to look and... discovered this:





Seriously! It's like, I rolled over an axe! It cut straight through the sidewall and took a chip out of the rim! Calling Discount Tire on Monday... Should've bought the road hazard insurance

 

That is a big tear! Do you have a spare tire or did you have to call a flatbed?

 

That SUCKS!!! Did you hear the thing you hit? I'm sorry to hear taht. Those were brand new too right? Doesn't look like any rim damage though.



Since this is on topic, just thought I'd add some driving tips. If you get a blow out (especially a steer tire) the worst and most dangerous thing to do is jam on the brakes. If the car is at high speeds, hard braking will pull the car off the road. The best thing to do, which seems a bit wierd is to accelerate the car until you get control, and then after gaining control, apply soft braking until stopped.

 

It's hard to tell by the picture, but it almost looks like there was a bubble on the side wall where it ripped. Can you tell if there was a bubble? If so you might have hit a pothole or something previously and snapped a belt creating a bubble, and then after time it eventually popped.

I had a bubble the size of a softball on one of my truck tires and caught it before it let go. I've seen bubbles the size of golf ***** on car tires. I left a note on a Mazda 3 the other day that was parked in my neighberhood, letting them know they had a bubble. Looked like new tires too

 

Yah, these were just 2 months old. I'm pretty sure I hit something to cause this. At first I thought that's all that'd happened but it sounded weird, then the back end felt weird. I didn't lose control at all though. The back end didn't feel right at all but it was still completely controllable (I wouldn't have wanted to race on it or anything but I was in no danger of losing control).

Whatever it is I hit, it damaged the rim, right through a 255/40/17 tire. To quote Zack, if I'd been on the 18's with a much shorter sidewall, I'd likely be looking at a lot more rim damage. As is, it took a nice little chunk out, maybe the size of a dime. I'm going to bring it to Discount Tire on Monday and see if it's still usable.

 

At least RFP's are cheap now....if you can find another one.

 

Isn't sidwall the weakest place of tire??

 

It's the strongest

 

R u sure?

 

Sidewall is thinner than the Tread plus it's designed to take ↓↑ impact
not for the impact from the side. Therefore u can easily damage or blow the tire up by
hitting the curb.... No?

 

You're right that it's not meant to take side impacts, but in the direction this appeared to take the damage in it's supposed to be the strongest. I'm taking the wheel in to Discount Tire in a few minutes, we'll see what they say. I'll try and get a picture of the wheel with the tire off of it.

 

Well, Discount gave me $121 for the old tire and there's no damage to the wheel other than the dime sized chip in the paint. I really wish I knew what I hit... anyways, new tire comes in on Friday. I'll take a pic of the rim when I get home tonight.

 

U don't need a new rim then

 

Yup! And I was surprised they gave me $121 back on the tire, I was expecting to go in there and have them say it was going to be $180 for the tire and i was going to have to price match to Tire Rack. As is, I let them keep their margin because I was paying so much less than I was expecting.

 

crap man. at least they took care of you..

 

So the rim has a chip now, but it isn't bent!



Side note: This is the first time I've had one of these rims with no tire on it and DAMN, they're really light! It's one thing to know that most of the weight in a wheel/tire combo is the tire, but it's another to actually handle them separately.

 

Ouch....