Tire failure - near thing

[Dr J]

I had that happen as well on the Florida turnpike. Fortunately the car was very controllable, as in your case. It was the rear tire. In my case, I know exactly why it happened. My trip to work was about 20 miles each way, highway driving with some traffic. I had reasonably new tires and purchased road hazard. While in traffic I felt the car was sluggish and concluded it was a flat tire. However, because of the rain, traffic and the fact I was in the turnpike, I continued driving to work for maybe another 5-6 miles. When I inspected the tires, sure enough, one of them was flat. At that point, I contacted the tire place and asked them to replace the tire. Instead, they patched it up and said it was ok. I remained skeptical and was not completely surprised when, a few days later, that tire came clean off like yours.

The root cause of the failure was the fact that driving a tire with low pressure, after a certain amount of distance, induces fatigue failure of the wire reinforcement. Since the reinforcement is embedded in the rubber, it is not visible.

Because we normally put performance tires with stiff sidewalls in our 911s, it is often difficult to notice that you have low or no tire pressure. After that incident, I purchased a universal orange tpms and installed it. It has been invaluable to me in avoiding low tire pressure issues and warned me of another puncture in real time, where I was able to quickly move to a safe location.

To finish the story, I called that tire company, demanded a flat bed, and gave them an earful. Funny how they still thought it could be repaired until they saw that the wheel only had about 2 inches of sidewall left on both sides.

[Locker537]

Originally Posted by Crow911

I had a similar issue but when mine failed i was able to stop before the rim cut the tread off. Cause of my failure was not a tire defect but rather a sudden air loss due to valve stem failure. My Fuchs had been polished and the valve stem supports were removed. Clearly the supports are needed if you drive your Porsche at high speeds because they prevent the stem from bending at high speed due to centrifugal forces. They are available online.

Replace the valve stems when you replace the tires. Generally speaking, you do not need the supports if you use good, short length valve stems.

[Billiam 911 2.8]

Aren't the 052s a DOT track focused tire? Since you are operating within the proper temperatures specified this should not be the issue. Yokohama should be especially concerned with this type of failure. Do you have all the tire pieces should Yokohama request they be sent to them for analysis? I am glad you came away unscathed. Imagine this failure at Big Willow.