Motorway tyre blow out

[Timmyboybunter]

Looking for some advice please. Always get sensible replies on this forum hence still asking questions for my old Mercedes

Had a low speed blow out on the M4 yesterday, near side rear - tyre is 4 years old in good condition, plenty of tread, no recent pot hole hits, no cracks etc. Only thing I can't vouch for is the pressure, but nothing caught my eye recently and all 4 generally hold their pressures without issue. Tyre went with a huge BANG which may have masked any noise from road debris.

Took the wheel off today to find 2 large gashes on the inside perimeter - nothing obviously wrong/sharp in the well area, spring is intact.

Pics attached, including one showing relative location of the 2 gashes (4 and 8 o'clock approx).

Anyone suffered similar looking damage at any point? Bit nervous to put an expensive new tyre on for fear of chewing it up again.

[bigwinn]

How old are they- what’s the date code on the tyres?

[mr wilks]

That to me is low pressure , possibly under load but not necessarily & hit a rut or heavy compression & the rim does the damage to the tyre wall .

[B21]

Looks to me like you’ve ridden off the edge of a lined pothole repair…..often they seam a pothole repair…when it deteriorates again you get a sharp edge seem ..it cuts through the sidewall like a knife…lost two like that locally on the similar potholes on the F56 and XC70..seen it in on an Alpina and E85 too..

Doubt it’s low pressure as the root cause..more likely to get delamination the tread…imho

[Beerman]

Two identical cuts/splits is strange.

I've had a couple of blowouts. Both with Goodyear tyres. The tyre garage on both occasions sent the tyre back to Goodyear.

The first time I was given a full refund as the tyre was less than a year old. The next tyre was a bit older(bought at the same time as the previous failed tyre)and I was given an discount based on the percentage of tread depth left.

Both my tyre had three bubbles and splits on the inner sidewall 120° apart.

[MikeyH]

Have you got any of those cushion style speed bumps near you, the ones they bolt to the road. I have and they fall apart leaving bolts sticking up. I swear that's what messed up the inside of one of my tyres.

[Timmyboybunter]

Thanks all for the input.

A bit more digging shows the damage does seem similar to a number of similar examples of damage caused by low pressure, so that's my working theory. I'll see what the tyre fitter thinks and just get him to double check the wheel well area in case I've missed anything.

[Rockhopper]

Low profile tyres can be very flat before it looks obvious. Mine can loose at least 10psi and still look fine, the warning light doesn't even come on quite often! Mines an older Z4 with the pre valve based TPMS system.
I check them once a week now.

[Timmyboybunter]

Low profile tyres can be very flat before it looks obvious. Mine can loose at least 10psi and still look fine, the warning light doesn't even come on quite often! Mines an older Z4 with the pre valve based TPMS system.
I check them once a week now.

Yes I think this is 100% my fault

Even with the tyre blown out and back on the car awaiting replacement, it doesn't look particularly flat compared to the others. We're having some work done on the house this year and loads of rubbish is blocking up the garage, so I've been a bit slack on tyre pressure checking. Lesson learned!