Weird crack on BFG Rival tread
 

I was rotating my tires today and found a strange fault-line-looking crack that goes across the tread on two of my tires. The driver's front tire and the passenger rear tire. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a thing before. And no, there's nothing in the wheel well they could be hitting, nor do I tend to drive on razor blades.

I guess what scares me most, is both cracks looks remarkably similar.

Looks like a call/email to BFGoodrich is in order.

^ what that man said.

Looks like a bad batch of tires. Manufacturing defects like that warrant replacements under warranty.

It's sometimes called "tread splice." It's a fairly common occurrence with the Rivals and it's purely cosmetic. It won't really develop any further and doesn't affect the performance or longevity of the tires. BFG is aware of it, it came up when they were first released, and at this point they won't replace tires because of it.

The Federal 595 RS-R tires have that problem as well. They are "cheaper" tires, and a quick google search will reveal results. Not sure if Federal was replacing them or not.

We saw this on many early Toyo RR's as well. Toyo put out a TSB with mountig direction specific to the axle and drive to help reduce shearing forces on the tread splice. It helped. I'm not sure if the same thing would work on Rival, but here is Toyo's TSB: http://www.frisbyracetire.com/images/TSD-12-023%20-%20RR%20DOT%20Mounting%20Orientation%20Recommendat ion.jpg

Here is an explanation of what is happening: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...jsp?techid=160

Never seen a Dunlop Z2 do that in the 2 sets I've owned. ;)

sweet, thanks! I searched the web and found a few posts about it but no clarification. I emailed tirerack yesterday as well but they haven't replied yet.

Keep us posted wut TireRack says, im running Rivals too and do see the same cracks


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Guys this is not normal and is not safe for sure. I circuit race a Honda and have had this issue with my Kumho XS tires. It starts of as a line like the picture above but without warning the whole tire delaminates. I am talking about fender, suspension, brake damage let alone if you hit something. I am running Rivals too on my BRZ and this photo you posted brings back horrific memories. Ill be checking my tires today and if I see a line I am changing to Advans AD08R in a heartbeat.

This is not the same thing. Plenty of people have raced these until they were almost to the cords after the cracks showed up initially.

I can't seem to find the post anymore but Pete Calhoun who is the motorsports director at BFG (and a long-time autocrosser/road-racer) worked with the BFG engineers and Tirerack and found it was a non-issue. This will not lead to delaminating...

Tirerack says a-ok, and sent me this bulletin.

The guy I work with used to design tires for firestone said its called an open splice. Sombody didn't or forgot to put on some type of adhesive on it. They shouldn't come apart.