theiceman

As i'm fed up of hearing and talking about Covid lets talk about something else as i come here to get away to get away from all that..

i was on another car forum and there is a guy is Livid about his tires he bought on Amazon and swears he is going to sue them. He is getting cracking where the sidewall meets the tread. The tires to me look like they have been beaten hard at the track and actually look melted on the shoulders. Led me to wondering if these is an implied use about tires. Could I take any tire to the track ( not saying he did i was just wondering ) beat on it , and if it begins to fail claim warranty ?
I know there are a lot of track guys on here and a few tire guys so thought someone might have input as i am neither a track guy or a Tire guy. I am almost positive this guy tracks a fairly heavy pig of a car compare to a Porsche ( Audi B8 ) and wondered if the tire company could say that is not the intended use of the tire ?

here is a pic. I also notice a colour change and wondered if he bough retreaded tires through Amazon.
its an issue because Amazon says its not their problem as Warranty is applied by manufacturer beyond 30 days . Tire company says no warranty because Amazon is not an authorized retailer.

a pic



Any thoughts ?
Again not me , I was just interested in the topic and thought those tires could be retreads.

uniquenamehere

Yikes, what brand are they? There's a lot of garbage on Amazon. These might be defective tires resold or something else equally sketchy.

shizzle

This looks like one of two things. It would be useful to see the production date of the tires, as the kind of cracking appearing could be due to dry rot or improper storage during cold periods. The other thing is that the person may be running these tires in temperatures too cold for them. I’ve seen this exact kind of cracking in the latter scenario multiple times.

Edit: You also mentioned that he might be driving a heavy car. Improper pressures with an incorrect load rating could also cause this.

jumper5836

Tracked tires do not crack like that. I am thinking if they were extremely inflated over 60 psi and very hot even then maybe they would. Even then though, wouldn't the tires be chunking away tread at those temps.

theiceman

Here are his comments from the Audi forum .

I wanted to make a new thread for this given some new information that has come to light regarding this set of Nokian ZLINE A/S tires I purchased from Amazon. For those that don't know the back story from the other thread, I purchased a set of Nokian ZLINE A/S tires "New" from amazon in Feb. of 2019. The other day while working on my car I happen to be close enough to the tire to notice that the tires were splitting at the seams where the tread meets the sidewall in a very unusual manner. They also appeared to be dry rotting as well. The tires were dated 1417 which is the 14th week of 2017 for manufacturing. This is well within the 6 year recommended lifetime for any given tire, especially for warranty purposes. At first being concerned that my car being lowered played some impact in this, either the fender cutting into them or pothole damage, I began to inspect all 4 tires for damage, to my surprise, all 4 tires were showing the same separation at the sidewall/tread seam. I contacted Amazon regarding the issue as the tires were clearly defective, and since this was a public safety issue, I expressed my concerns given the fact that the tires have a 5 year warranty against defects. Afterall, Amazon advertises that they are an authorized dealer selling Nokian tires shipped and sold directly from Amazon Services LLC, they should not have an issue honoring the warranty. Customer service explained that they only allow returns or replacement for up to 30 days. Well that's bull****, flat out. Any authorized dealer for tires can contact the mfg and replace tires under warranty, its the only way they can do that efficiently all over the globe.

theiceman

Greg you see that deformation at the outer edge of the tread ? is that what you might see on a tracked tire ? i thought i saw that on a few discarded tires at mosport, but maybe not.

911 Rod

Those tires don't look like they have had much use. No gummy worms or anything. The wear does look like it ends at the cracks.
Maybe it was left flat for a while?
If there was warranty on track tires, the lineup would be long.

bcrdukes

Umm, are those Nokian tires?

jumper5836

Never like that usually your see edges worn smoothly not cracking. Running to low of pressure will wear them down and cause cupping not cracks. I allowed my tires to reach 55 psi on some really cheap tires and this did cause a crack straight across the width of the tire.
I'd say this is from dry rot, really old tires, tires run flat in freezing temps or manufacturing issue.

triggz82

The owner should probably just go to a tire shop that distributes Nokian and go through the warranty process which I'm sure would be smooth given the damage. Going to the track with an a/s tire like that is almost pointless... it wouldn't last two laps before he was sliding everywhere. Looks like genuine defect.

I had a set of early Michelin PS4S that could not roadforce balance on all four tires (they balanced fine otherwise). We determined that they were defective from the manufacturer... so I think there are bad batches of tires everywhere.

theiceman

well i will let you guys know where it goes. As i said i don't know if he tracked them , i was just wondering. yeah Nokian tires with a 1417 date code. so they dont seem old enough to even have dry rot.

shizzle

^ Totally agree. Based on the manufacture date, it's probably a combination of dry rot because of improper storage.

Imo000

That looks more like thread separation than cracking to me. Something like this is either age or manufacturing defect related but since the tire is not that old, this has to be a manufacturing defect.

wc11

Maybe those are Covid infected tires?
Sorry. Had to.

But it almost looks like a retread about to separate.

Imo000

Does it say "Intelligent Sidewall Technology" on top of the sidewall, just before the threads start? Now that's ironic isn't it?