Just discovered this morning that I had a very bad tire, as in wire showing on the inside edge. OK,my bad. It got me thinking about what could have happened. Basically- BOOM! I have always heard that the way to survive a blowout was to not slam on the brakes, but to let the car coast off the right side of the road. Anybody have thoughts on this, or experiences to share?
No experiences, thankfully, but it seems like the basics of car control apply: Don't do anything to unnecessarily upset the chassis.
I mean, with three inflated tires, it's going to be upset already. But tagging the brakes is going to have all its normal forward-weight-transfer effects plus whatever tire has blown won't have much grip so the braking will now have a yaw torque.
I'd guess the right answer is to employ all your autocross/track-day honed skills to get the thing pointed straight and stable after the initial blowout, then get slowed down and pulled over as smoothly as possible.
It's simple, don't slam the brakes and/or jerk the wheel.
Having suffered massive tire failures at over 100 mph on my racecar, I can tell you the best thing is to do nothing. Ride it out and gradually slow until you can pull over and stop.
I had a rear go on the Miata at 80-90mph. I braked lightly and pulled off the road. Exceptional talent was not necessary. Just be smoooooth.
Don49 wrote: I can tell you the best thing is to do nothing. Ride it out and gradually slow until you can pull over and stop.
^^^ This. I have had a tire blow out on the Interstate twice. The above advice worked perfectly both times.
take foot off gas, coast it out or brake lightly. you don't want to separate the tire from the rim
What they said.
Ride it out is the best advice you can get. Kind of like dropping two off the road at speed. The worst thing you can do is anything, other than letting off the gas.
My worst was a rear tire on a truck load of fire wood at 65mph. It went off like a cannon and the truck went from the right lane to the median sideways, down into the ditch and damn near clipped a culvert lid. I'm still not sure how it didn't flip.
The other three were uneventful. Bang, flat tire, pull over and change it. One right front on a Rabbit at 60mph, one right front on a E250 at 55mph and one right rear on a Lincoln Towncar at 70mph.
Wait, two others. Left front on a F150. That one got a railroad spike through the tread and out the sidewall. The other was a left rear on a E150. A cut in a sidewall. It blew in a turn lane waiting for traffic.
I guess if you drive enough it's going to happen. All but the first were probably impact damage. The first was just over loaded.
Ride it out and don't do anything sudden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ubdVZP1oV8
That's what you do. You man up and keep the hell going.
I actually just had a major blowout at 70mph in a heavily loaded F550. Right front tire let go while in the left lane on I-75. It jerked HARD right, very lucky no one was beside me, took all I had to keep it from shooting off the shoulder into the ditch. I don't think I even touched the brakes until I had it under reasonable control. Then I very gently slowed it down and luckely into a scenic view pull off.
Scared the pants off of my passenger, he's a sixty something year old vietnam vet. He just said "Lord all I've lived through and I'm gonna die upside down in this ditch" He actually started to grab for the wheel but pulled back when he looked at me. I gave him that don't even think about it look.
I lost both tires on the right side of the car once.
I was on I-75 southbound, north of Atlanta, in the middle lane. A semi in front of me dropped the drive shaft[*], and there were cars to my left and right preventing a lane change. I moved as far to the left as I could within my lane, but still ran over it with both tires on right side.
Stopping with two flats from highway speed is exactly as described above. Foot off the gas, let it slow naturally, and don't make any fast steering movements.
[*] - I found out later that the truck had been in for servicing the day before
I guess I must live with the Gods. In over 50 yrs of driving, I have never experienced a blowout. A couple tires slowly going flat, that's it. From racing experience, I know what to do, just as everyone has said.
Now watch, I'll get a blowout next time out.
In highschool I was driving my toyota pickup and realized one of the tires felt like it had a wobble in it on the freeway. Well driving to pick my dad up from work and boom going 75mph, no dramatics.
The other one was driving my Dad's focus from SF and I basically saw something(battery, metal, ?) and hit it. This cut down one of the tires. Again just don't do anything stupid, an object in motion will stay in motion . . .
As in most emergency moments be smooth and avoid abrubt transitions.
I lost the right front in the RX-7 at about 65 mph in the left lane of three lanes of urban interstate during rush-hour traffic. Getting across to the right was out of the question. Best I could do was coast to a stop alongside the concrete median barrier. The berkeleytard in the SUV behind me saw fit to lay on the horn before pulling right and getting around me. None of it was fun, but all in all, relatively undramatic.
I look at my tires every day. I guess it has just become second nature. My dad always told me there are two things you don't berkeley around with on a car: Tires and brakes. In that order. I can't see being shocked that a tire is corded, unless you have a serious alignment issue. But yeah, as with most things, react as calmly as possible, and replace that berkeleying tite before you kill someone.
I was dodging many tire chunks on the way home tonight.
I got to see the perpetrator of some of them. A motorcoach lost the right front tire. Three lanes of highway, the tire chunks were all over the right and center lanes, and the motorcoach was on the LEFT side of the road, not very far from some of the chunks. Either some people caught and dragged tire bits up almost next to the thing, or that was one hell of a wild ride for a while.
well had flat and blown sidewall on a tire today and car was more stable on the flat tire with a torn sidewall than it was on the stupid donut.
Back when I was a teenage drift moron with a 240sx, I once ran a tire to the cords on one side, flipped it around, and then corded the other side of it. I had to take the freeway to get to the tire shop, and as I was cruising along at 65 or so in the slow lane, the tire decided that it had had enough, and the entire tread section let go and just rolled away. I got off the gas and coasted the car to a stop while I watched most of the tire cruise along ahead of me as I pulled off of the road. I was lucky, both in that it didn't end catastrophically, and that the sidewalls, which were still on the wheel, wrapped their way around each bead of the rim and kept it from being damaged.
I never ran a tire quite that far into the ground again.
I thought it was interesting to note that the (Dunlop) tire that I had blow out had at least half of the tread remaining. I don't know exactly how old the tire was, but I suspect it was at least 5 years old and that the car had been sitting for a while. The entire sidewall on the outboard side of the tire blew out, leaving the tread and the bead separated all the way around. It's worth noting that a tire doesn't have to be completely worn out to blow out.
I remember one time i felt something funny in a rear tire on my van. I got off the highway and coasted into a parking lot, going through a red light on an absolutely deserted cross street in the process. Small town cop hanging out in deserted area to avoid working sees me and follows me into the parking lot where im looking at my van.
You aware you blew through that stop sign (at 7mph)?
Yes, i thought my wheel was going to fall off so i was trying to get off public street asap.
Dont care, have ticket.
Yeah, berkeley you and your small town taxes.
Couldnt find anything with the wheel/tire, so kept going with my ticket and blew out about 10 miles down the road. Very uneventful, just cruised over and changed it in an another parking lot where no cops harassed me this time.
I had multiple bad experiences with my 94 explorer and Firestone tires. They would break the steel belts and if you did not catch it the tire would blow. I had one let go while pulling in to my driveway. I went and got another from the junk yard to match the set. A couple months later I was getting a shimmy n the rear and after inspecting the other tires it was obvious what the issue was as you can see the "wiggle" in the tire and or a slight bulging in the trend. Classic broken steel belt. I had two that were an issue one was really bad and was causing the shimmy. I ended up replacing the remaining all four tires with new ones from Firestone. About a year later the recall was issued and I actually got reimbursed for the new set. I was always suspicious about that recall and everyone blaming it on low tire pressures as my case was clearly caused by broken belts in the carcass of the tire. I think it was a convenient way to pass the blame on to operator error instead of both Firestone and Ford taking the heat for a defective tire. It was also suspicious as the recall was for a specific run of tires. If you had tires that were not in the particular serial number range the recall did not apply. Any yet it was an inflation issue. One of those things that make you shake your head.
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