Used tires - bad luck or bad idea?

Picked up a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee.  The tires had worn shoulders and lots of age cracking through the tread.  Because this was going to be unloved and low mileage, I went to Marketplace and bought a used set of Yokohama Geolanders.  2022 date code, 8/32 tread.  Within 500 miles one failed while driving.  It was dark last night so I just changed it side of the road and didn't look at what happened yet to see if I can tell how it failed.

They aren't directional tread, but could this be caused by running it opposite direction of the original mounting?  Did I set myself up for failure or was this likely just bad luck?

Directional tread doesn't usually reflect any directional construction. Running something backwards isn't going to cause enough stress to prompt a tire failure. There's some other issue at play. Any idea how these tires were stored? Aside from bad luck, that would be my first suspicion. 

To the best of my knowledge, directional tread just has to do with shedding water at speed. So you shouldn't wear the tire at all running it backwards. Lemons teams often do it to get more miles out of a race tire - run it one orientation for a while then have it flipped on the wheel and run it the other way.

I'm going to guess either un-noticed problem with the tire or vehicle. Maybe the tire was damaged when being mounted. Check it over and see how it failed, maybe we can figure something out.

How aggressive of a tread?

I had it happen once, resulting in bubbles in the sidewall and trees from separation between plies on a 4wd square body (tires came from a friend and were originally on a 4wd GMT 400). 

I haven't seen a failure due to changing direction of rotation since the 90s, but I also haven't tried it with any tires having an aggressive tread pattern. 

With nothing more to go on, I'm guessing good ol' fashioned bad luck. Sounds like you had it on long enough that it was unlikely something not disclosed by the seller, or missed by you, and I doubt it was stored in any worse condition than any other tire mounted on any car that isn't garaged.

Did you buy them loose or pre-mounted on wheels?  How often do you check pressures on them?  When you say "failed" did it just go flat, or something more spectacular?

If loose, it's possible they were damaged during dismounting.  I've had a tire store gouge chunks out of the bead by getting too aggressive with the prybar on a tire I wanted to reuse, and I'm told that can cause it to leak air. 

If pre-mounted on wheels, then it's also possible that the wheel it's on (or valve stem) is leaking.

But I agree with Driven5 that it's most likely just bad luck.

People run tires backwards all the time on the track in the dry without issue. I'd seriously doubt street use it going to make one come apart if it wasn't already failing internally.

Plain boring Yoko Geolander highway tread 225/75-17 so nothing crazy here.   Bought them loose from a Marketplace guy that buys from dealers putting new tires on for resale or customer request and he snags the good takeoff sets.   They haven't been sitting long and inside his warehouse/shop.  I checked the air pressure before we left for Thanksgiving.  It's the motorhome toad so I keep a slightly closer eye on them.  Had just done about 10 miles of 60 MPH two lanes.  Slowed down getting into town and suddenly a lot of road noise and a wiggle from the rear.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

 

If loose, it's possible they were damaged during dismounting.  I've had a tire store gouge chunks out of the bead by getting too aggressive with the prybar on a tire I wanted to reuse, and I'm told that can cause it to leak air. 

I was going to reply with the same thought. When I was a kid, it seemed like we were always getting used tires for our junk. I had access to a tire machine, but nobody had really shown me how to use it. I damaged more than one bead before I figured it out. 

In reply to glueguy (Forum Supporter) :

You said they've been on for a few hundred miles and it's low use. Is it safe to assume this was long enough ago that a slow leak from something like a damaged bead would have shown up by now?

Yeah that was just bad luck and had nothing to do with the tire being mounted backwards. If you'd spun out on some water or dirt that might've been related. Of all the tires I've ever had only 3 sets were bought new.

I'm going with bad luck. There is no telling what's on the road around my house, with all of the construction and stuff going on. I once got a screwdriver embedded in the sidewall of a tire about 45 minutes after I bought it. 

I'm going with bad luck as well.

If you're concerned about the directional tread thing, just drive backwards 

LOL, no, I'm just trying to rationalize bad luck.

Maybe you picked up a _____ that caused an air leak and it just came apart.  That happened to me. also have picked up something, lost air and just pulled over with no other damage to tire.
 

  Car without tpms means you don't know if you're losing air until it might be too late. 
 

The "running a radial tire backwards makes it come apart" line hasn't been true since the 1970s, and THAT may have been a made up line to cover for poor manufacturing.

Anything could have happened to those tires before you bought them. They may have been replaced because the original owner slammed a curb going 30 and thought, hell I may have berkeleyed that tire up, time to get a new set. I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw'm.

jfryjfry said:

Maybe you picked up a _____ that caused an air leak and it just came apart.  That happened to me. also have picked up something, lost air and just pulled over with no other damage to tire.
 

  Car without tpms means you don't know if you're losing air until it might be too late. 
 

 

Yea

This happened to me a few months back. Picked up a razor blade in the back tire. I noticed when I could smell it. At least the tire was almost dead anyway. 
 

Anything is possible out there. 

First saw this, wavy sidewall with a couple of tears

Then spotted this.  I assume something was in there and exited

jfryjfry said:

  Car without tpms means you don't know if you're losing air until it might be too late.

On a lot of cars with TPMS, you only know if you're losing air before it's too late if it happens slowly...when I switch to winter wheels without sensors, my Toyobaru takes about half an hour of driving to notice that all the sensors are missing!

To the OP, glad it didn't turn out any worse, and I'll jump in the wagon of "bad luck/it's nothing you did."

Just a long story about tpms.  VW issued a recall for my GTI and other products a few years ago because of the tpms system.  

Apparently, the system could only detect a loss of pressure if one tire was below pressure compared to the other three.  

However... if all four tires lost pressure at the same rate, it would not trigger the system.

I didn't notice anything untoward with my tires but I checked them anyway.  Sure enough, they were all set at the recommended 37 psi at one point and they were each currently showing 31 psi with no warning lights triggered.  With the relatively narrow and stiff sidewalls I now realize I can’t rely on the old walk around eye-ball check.

Lesson learned and I took advantage of the free-to-me recall that is supposed to catch any loss of tire pressure over a certain percentage.

Anyway, just be aware and be more diligent than I was, if a vehicle is so equipped (this could have been specific to VW while other manufacturers may have been more sophisticated from the get go...I don't know).  I admit that I got lazy with the new car and tech.

Bummer for sure and glad it didn't turn out worse.  Definitely just bad luck.

As far as running the tires backwards, a commonly accepted rotation pattern is Drivers Straight, Coasters Cross which means every rotation you're changing the rotation direction of 2 tires.  Definitely not the problem.

glueguy (Forum Supporter) said:

First saw this, wavy sidewall with a couple of tears

That tire's been driven on very low or flat.  The ring around the sidewall is the telltale.