Dr. No

Posted here because I know many of us run them on the 993s, although this is from the back of a BMW 330i.

This is a driver's side rear tire. An entire section of the inboard tread separated from the steel belt and sidewall. Granted the tires are worn down to the wear bars (they'd have been replaced by now if we had any rain) but were not worn to the point of exposing any kind of belt. Alignment is stock. At speed this could be a real problem!

Thoughts?

NP993

You certainly got your money's worth out of those tires...

IainM

Too many tight right handers

Did it happen at the track or around town? Where you driving?

pirahna

Down to the wear bars might be an understatement.

crg53

You are kidding, right. I know its not April 1st, but that's gotta be a joke.

lopro

camber and over warn. Buy a new set. when your at the tire store ask the installer to show you when to replace them.
this is dangerous leaving your tires wear to this extent.

Dr. No

Yes and no. Though rated as 300, got fewer miles than the 140 rated RE050's on the back of my 993.

No and no. Tires have never been tracked. Car is not driven hard.

No I'm not kidding. I don't live in Canada.

Dr. No

Overly worn, yes. But don't think it's camber. As noted, the alignment was stock and the tread on the section that separated was actually much better than what you see in the middle of the tire. I've seen plenty of tires worn through to the belts that don't have entire sections of the tread fly off.

Vandit

Negative camber, and even more damaging than camber, toe, will do that. Then again, that's what gives BMWs (and other performance-oriented cars) great handling. You sacrifice tire life for performance.

Perhaps they were running too low on air, or at some point had run too low, causing the tire's construction to be compromised.

pirahna

My old 330ci used to eat the inside of all its tires. I must have had it aligned 4 times by the time I got rid of it at 60k miles. Best I ever got was 9k out of the rears and about 12k out of the fronts. Loved that car.

lopro

No I'm not kidding. I don't live in Canada.[/QUOTE]

what does this have to do with Canada or any nation??

P-daddy

I've had many BMWs over the years. Even at factory ride height and alignment specs, there's always some negative camber for that sporty handling, as mentioned above. And that's what ate up your rear tires.

Dr. No

That's true and a good point about BMWs in particular.

But again the section of the tread that is missing there was not worn as much as the center of the tire. You can see from the part of the tread that is right next to the section that separated. The passenger side tire (like the driver side before the tread came off) still has decent grooves in the rubber. No wear down to any belt prior to this event.

What happened was a good inch and a half of the tire tread separated quickly and without warning from the rest of a properly inflated, 2010 manufacture tire with about 17k easy miles in a manner I'd describe as "catastrophic", leaving what you see in the picture.

So I don't think of this as a "wear" issue, but a "failure" issue. And it sounds like no one else has had this happen -- although I've now seen other reports of similar failures for the HTR Z III.

(And for you Canadians, , it's dry and warm and flat here, so we may try to squeeze a few more miles out of beater tires on the grocery getter. No offense intended.)

race911

E46 or E90? Not that it matters--~40K per set out of our E46, now ~25K per set out of the POS runflats on the E90.

Odd things happen to tires when you get well inside their proper replacement window.

Dr. No

Hear that, just never expected something like this. e46, with less than 20k, less than 3 years use. No unusual wear inbord.

I was ready to replace the rears only and am now thinking of replacing all four with something different. I've always liked the HTR Z III as a good value tire but let's just say am reconsidering after this.