Crazy tire blowout this week

[daan]

My wife drives our 5 mostly. We live right about 30 miles from St Paul, where she works. Anyway I put a new set of General Altimax Arctic snow tires on it this past November. I've had the same kind of tires on this 5 already, that wore out, plus I have Altimaxes on our 2 other vehicles, so lots of experience with these tires. Always kept inflated 35psi (air compressor in the garage, I check them so often I wonder if I have OCD or something)
Anyway she was driving home from work 12-26, she heard a loud BANG and could barely get the car over to the shoulder, and eventually couldn't get it to move. SHe doesn't really "do" cars, and was relaying all this to me over the phone on the side of the road. By the time I could get there (had to find someone to watch the kids and call in late to my job) I discovered the entire tread part of the tire separated from the rim, and wrapped itself around the strut. Thank God it didn't pull off the brake line! Pictures of the carnage:





I've NEVER had a tire let go this completely, and I've literally wore out 4 sets of these same tires on my vehicles with NO problems. Has anyone else run into this sort of thing before?
The Tire Rack (where these are from) got me a new wheel/tire in, like, 3 days even with the holidays going on so everything is back to normal now.

 

[mazdadude]

Sometimes, because of the very aggressive rear camber on the 2006 and 2007 models, the inner tread and inner shoulder of the tire will go bald where the rest of the tire will look ok.

What does the inner shoulder of the other remaining tire look like?

How often did you rotate tires?

 

[Silentnoise713]

Glad no one was hurt. I think you just got a bad tire considering you've went through a set previously and you only had these on since Nov.

That said, I would check the manufacture date of all four tires. If they are out of the same calendar week/year, I would be a bit concerned they came from the same batch but this is a big ASSumption it is a tire issue.

 

[daan]

Sometimes, because of the very aggressive rear camber on the 2006 and 2007 models, the inner tread and inner shoulder of the tire will go bald where the rest of the tire will look ok.

What does the inner shoulder of the other remaining tire look like?

How often did you rotate tires?

Well this was on the passenger side, front corner, and was a new tire in November, so the tread is 99% across the whole tires... I have summer and winter wheels and they get rotated every time I change them over.

 

[mazdadude]

Well this was on the passenger side, front corner, and was a new tire in November, so the tread is 99% across the whole tires... I have summer and winter wheels and they get rotated every time I change them over.

Oh good, that is good to hear...Will it be replaced under tire warranty?

 

[DougNuts]

Wow, most importantly everyone is OK.

 

[SonicBoy]

+1.

Hopefully just a single bad tire based on your previous experience with the brand. Tire Rack has always stepped up to the plate with customer service.

Glad no one was hurt and everything worked out for you.

 

[Robotazky]

Wow. Glad to hear she's OK.

Maybe it's just me, but that's an event that would get a tire and maker banned, permanently.

 

[thaxman]

Nice blowout. That's a real pro effort there - haha

Anyway, since the sidewall is pretty much missing on the inside, I bet there was a large and scary pothole involved that created a bubble on the inside of that tire. The separation grew and grew until ...well you see the result.

Glad to hear everyone's safe after that. Ones like that can cause rollovers, but I think the Mazda5 has the suspension chops to kinda negate that in most circumstances.