Tire Sidewall Damage
 

Just looking to gain a little knowledge here.

2018 BRZ. Got new wheels and tires at 8K mi. General G-Max AS-05
Now at 56K mi.
Alignment: -1.5F L&R, -1.7R L&R, 0 toe front, 1/8 toe rear.

Driving to work today and felt something off on acceleration and deceleration. Car would pull in one direction during accel. and the other during decel. I figured it was a low pressure tire and that I would fix the issue by filling up when getting to work. Problem worsened until I felt it quite a bit so I pulled over and saw the tires was near flat. Popped on the spare and went home. Attaching pics of what the tire looked like.

Just looking for thoughts on wear and damage of the tire.

- I see people often about low camber barely showing tire wear differences over long periods of time. This is my experience after 48K miles. But that is to be expected, especially because for me, that's probably about 80% highway miles.

- 50K is tire life expectancy, so I'm definitely nearly there. Didn't mean to drive on them this long, for some reason in my head I was thinking I was only nearing 40K miles on these tires. Never saw a tire tear like that before, but there's always a first. Is that likely due to age or alignment, or crap tire, or could be many things combined?

That's a typical run-flat condition.

What is the age of the tire? Was this a front or rear tire?

This....and the wear is likely due to the toe setting, not the camber....

How long did you drive it with suspected low pressure? By your description it sounds like it might have been quite a way, which could certainly cause this sidewall damage. Might have been a flat from any number of reasons.

Not running TPMS I take it?

My thought too, as was mentioned by others too. The tire was really low/flat and the wheel chewed away the edge of the tire as the car was driven.

One thing I've noticed with high load-rated performance tires is how you have very few visual indicators of low pressure until it's totally flat. The stiff sidewalls hide a lot. If you aren't checking pressures regularly it can sneak up on you. I don't have a lot of faith in the TPMS giving me an appropriate warning based on history with several different cars.

IMO, it was probably a road event that was punctured and just deflated "too quickly". Had that happen on my other car. When I stopped (when indicator lit up) and didn't immediately see any damage (had no tire gauge with me), I kept driving to my house ) I was nearby). Since it was the rear tire that was affected, it met a quicker death going uphill. In the end, it left had less damage than your tire but the inner structure was already affected. All this happened in maybe 10 minute timeframe. After all, this older car only notices differences in tire rotation speeds (doesn't give psi). Therefore, it was likely at less than 30psi when I parked to inspect.

TPMS check usually happens once every 25 miles approximately, with the pressure level trigger being 29 psi and under. Should be plenty of time to catch something unless it was a pretty sizeable leak.



Continuing to drive on an fault indicator is asking for trouble

that only works if the tpms is fully functional.

my sensors leapt into a ziplock bag 3 tire changes ago and got replaced with good old rubber valve cores.

Imho it's tire pressure. I had two tires explode on me exactly like this and in both cases it was because I kept driving on low pressure. You probably lost some pressure for whatever reason and tire overheated tremendously because of low pressure, resulting in sidewall explosion. Quite typical.

TPMS leaping into ziplock bag. Sounds like they are fully functional, sentient even

Have been away so I haven't had a chance to catch up on comments.

These are not run-flat tires from looking at the specs. I've had the tires for about 3-4 years. 50K miles on them. This one was the rear.

I don't have TPMS sensors on these aftermarket wheels since I've got them along with the tires. But funny enough, not long before this happened, I actually bought some. So once these tires are replaced, I'll be putting the TPMS sensors on.

Everything was good up until that morning that it happened. I typically pay attention to my tires and the pressures have been good. I'd say I last filled them to 38 psi about a month or two before the incident. That morning I was driving, I noticed right away something odd. As I mentioned above, accelerating would veer one way and letting go of the pedal would veer the other way. But this was quite subtle at the beginning of the drive. But still easily noticeable since the car has always drove perfectly straight with good alignment. I drove like that for 25 miles before swapping. It started to feel worse as I was getting on and off a couple exits, but the veering was only obvious when I pressed or let go of the gas pedal. Once I was cruising on the highway, I couldn't really tell, there wasn't a wobble or much of a sound that I recall. Once I had to slow down for traffic and then get going again, that's where I REALLY started to feel it and instantly pulled over.

I have mixed feelings about TPMS doing much other than allowing you to keep track of pressures over long periods of times. In a situation like this, TPMS or not, I was heading to work. So the hope was to make it or change to a spare and go home. I can quickly feel the change of a low pressure tire, don't need TPMS to tell me that. In this case, it was extra obvious. I do my own pressure checking every few months. And I'm always peeking over at the tires when I'm filling up gas. So I'd notice if something is off. In this case, I'm sure if I checked, I would have noticed. But TPMS light wouldn't have stopped me from going to work. Though it probably would have made me stop at a Wawa near home to fill up the tires, so maybe I would have noticed. But with this tear, it's just odd, and it being on the inside made it hard to notice or realize anything.

It's just interesting to me seeing a tire tear like that, it's a first for me. I guess the low pressures or old age caused a crack somewhere on the side and then that crack continued to expand and tear?

Thanks all for the feedback! Glad the wheel didn't take damage as that would have sucked.

The sidewall is not designed to support the weight of the car without the accompanying volume of pressurised air.