Mike951

Driving on the highway, felt the rear go out, crapped my pants, and made it to the side of the road to find my tire stripped from it's sidewalls. They are Cooper Zeons, about 5 years old or so. I got really lucky, the sidewalls saved my rim. Has anyone ever seen a tire fail like this? Now I'm scared to replace it and keep using the other 3 "good" ones. What do you guys think?

dillon410021

Was the tire stretched a bit on the wheel?

No HTwo O

Nice looking car! You got very lucky. Check the DOT code date on the sidewall (week/year). +5 year old tirs on a Porsche is a problem waiting to happen.

odurandina

yikes.

i have.... but, nothing nearly as bad as what happened to you. i had a front tire (Goodyear Eagle gatorback 225-50-15) go down at about 148 mph in my '79 Chevy malibu (running a taller 2.29 rear end instead of the stock 2.73 and a big V8 motor). the tire flew completely off the rim in a couple of seconds. i had just installed stiffer, shortened front springs and new front suspension pieces and i wanted to feel the suspension on the interstate at speed. i forgot that one of my tires was a bit low. had the air pump in the garage. just forgot to use it. there was a loud bang... thought something had broken, the car pulled a bit to the right. then we were on a rim. kinda scary. the added weight of the Chrysler 440 kept the car on the road. if it had been a rear tire, it is highly likely things would have gone a lot worse. so, what happened to you was far worse. wouldn't want a rear tire to fail, even going 40 mph on a secondary road.

V2Rocket

are tires supposed to last 5 years?

John_AZ

Is that a rhetorical question?

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...jsp?techid=138

John

V2Rocket

Dunno, I think I'm on my 5th or 6th set of tires since 2005

LUCKYJACKASS

Never had that exact experience, but had an old Michelin seperate and peel the tread off the rear tire of my '65 Mustang heading to work one morning. I got really lucky, as I was passing 2 cars on a small 2 lane highway near Ocala, Florida around 5 am. I hear a loud bang, then constant banging as the tread was slapping the inside of the rear tire well. I had to slow down and wait for the 2 cars to pass me so I could get back in the right lane. I pulled off to find the tire still inflated, but the tread ripped off and about 12" still bound to the rest of the tire. The steel belts sliced the steel inner fender well.

I thought I had thrown a rod it was so loud. Those cars I was passing must have freaked out, as it was still dark and I started fishtailing slightly when the tread seperated. Just another story of a LUCKYJACKASS.

Will Feather

Did they have dry rot on the side where sidewall meets contact patch?

I probably wouldn't run them. And FWIW tire installes are not legally allowed to install tires on rims over 10 years old, in MA at least.

Mike951

No, they didn't have any dry rot...they all looked good

No HTwo O

You don't drive her enough. +5 year old tires should never have that much tread remaining.

Mike951

The tires came on the wgeels when I bought them....been running them for about two years. Im going by tire date codes for age.

On top of that, its my weekend car and thats only from march-november or so...its hard for me to kill a set of tires

931guru

Let's see, major tire manufacturers: Michelin, Goodyear, BFG, Pirelli... I don't see Cooper on that list.

Dougs951

Cooper makes a good tire, odds are you had low tire pressure and that led to the failure.

f1rocks

Given that the memory of how lucky you were will always be in the back of your mind, would you really want to just replace one?

I'd not trust the other three given the age of them and experience you've had.