I was driving today when I heard an odd sound coming from the rear passenger side of the car. It sounded rather like the sound of a baseball card stuck through the spokes of a bike wheel. Pulled over and did an inspection but nothing was apparent as being stuck and the tire/wheel and wheel well looked fine. Fast forward to 10 minutes later and the clattering sounds stopped with a clunk. I seemed like maybe a rock had been lodged somewere and had rattled loose.
Didn't think much of it until about 15mins later when it started back up again. Pulled over and ran my hand all along the tire and the wheel well.
A patch of rubber from about halfway across the tire to the outside shoulder is basically melted. The treads are filled with cast-off and the texture is tacky... not quite chewed gum... maybe like the texture of the sticky tack you use to mount posters to the wall. On the inside shoulder it is the worst with large gummy-chunks peeling off with very little effort on my part. It is also warm-ish to the touch (the remainder of the tire is cool to the touch).
The sound appears to be coming from hunks that are peeling away from the main tire and impacting the wheel well. Which is why it stopped when a chunk (the 'rock') fell away.
There is a small quarter-silver dollar sized spot on the backside of the wheel well where I can see the coating rubbed off, at rest there apprears to be plenty of clearance (I can fit my hand between the tire and the well... so 3/4-1in). I don't recall ever having seen the rub mark before and I can't see any others.
Is there any way this could have been caused by rubbing? I do have 225-45-17s rather than the stock 215s. They have never rubbed before (with the exception of the driver's side front at full crank), but the tire in question is the passenger rear which I recall someone saying was the one to watch.
The tires are Kuhmo Ecsta MXs. They are about 14mos old and have about 16k on them. The tread is around half worn down but I was expecting to get another 6-10k on them before they would have been replaced. They were AutoXed on when I first got them (about 20-30 runs last summer) but have not seen anything but normal driving since September of last year.
Has anyone seen anything like this before? It seems obvious the patch is getting extreme extra heat for some reason, but there is no line of damage around the rest of the tire to suggest it is contacting part of the car.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/Lucifie/tire%20damage/tire2.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/Lucifie/tire%20damage/tire1.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/Lucifie/tire%20damage/chunk.jpg
(I am a little freaked out by the wire-y substance that pulled away with this chunk. Is it possible that's part of the carcass or is it just something that the sticky rubber picked up off the road? This is about average for the size of chunks falling off)
I am refraining from driving on this for now and will limp it to the nearest Discount tire in the morning to be replaced, but I want to know what caused this.
Its hard to note from the photos, but the rest of the tire looks completely normal. As near as I can tell all this damage has occured in the last 24/hrs or so and over about 20-30miles.
Didn't think much of it until about 15mins later when it started back up again. Pulled over and ran my hand all along the tire and the wheel well.
A patch of rubber from about halfway across the tire to the outside shoulder is basically melted. The treads are filled with cast-off and the texture is tacky... not quite chewed gum... maybe like the texture of the sticky tack you use to mount posters to the wall. On the inside shoulder it is the worst with large gummy-chunks peeling off with very little effort on my part. It is also warm-ish to the touch (the remainder of the tire is cool to the touch).
The sound appears to be coming from hunks that are peeling away from the main tire and impacting the wheel well. Which is why it stopped when a chunk (the 'rock') fell away.
There is a small quarter-silver dollar sized spot on the backside of the wheel well where I can see the coating rubbed off, at rest there apprears to be plenty of clearance (I can fit my hand between the tire and the well... so 3/4-1in). I don't recall ever having seen the rub mark before and I can't see any others.
Is there any way this could have been caused by rubbing? I do have 225-45-17s rather than the stock 215s. They have never rubbed before (with the exception of the driver's side front at full crank), but the tire in question is the passenger rear which I recall someone saying was the one to watch.
The tires are Kuhmo Ecsta MXs. They are about 14mos old and have about 16k on them. The tread is around half worn down but I was expecting to get another 6-10k on them before they would have been replaced. They were AutoXed on when I first got them (about 20-30 runs last summer) but have not seen anything but normal driving since September of last year.
Has anyone seen anything like this before? It seems obvious the patch is getting extreme extra heat for some reason, but there is no line of damage around the rest of the tire to suggest it is contacting part of the car.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/Lucifie/tire%20damage/tire2.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/Lucifie/tire%20damage/tire1.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/Lucifie/tire%20damage/chunk.jpg
(I am a little freaked out by the wire-y substance that pulled away with this chunk. Is it possible that's part of the carcass or is it just something that the sticky rubber picked up off the road? This is about average for the size of chunks falling off)
I am refraining from driving on this for now and will limp it to the nearest Discount tire in the morning to be replaced, but I want to know what caused this.
Its hard to note from the photos, but the rest of the tire looks completely normal. As near as I can tell all this damage has occured in the last 24/hrs or so and over about 20-30miles.
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