Tire failure

Yesterday the right rear tire failed on our E-150 van. The entire tread separated from the tire. Ended up bending and slightly crushing the tailpipe, dented the sheet metal behind the rear wheel, damaged the fiberglass fender flare and generally spooked my wife who was driving at 70 mph when it let go. Tire was a 225/75 R16 Michelin LTX. Tire had less than 40k miles but was about 6 years old. 

Tire did not lose pressure and she was able to safely pull over. 

There was apparently a recall on these tires, but it only applies to ones made between 2nd week of 2010 through 25th week of 2012. My tire was made 33rd week of 2012, so not covered by the recall. 

Glad she is ok and damage to the van is minimal. New tires will not be Michellins.  

Recall link

I'll contact Michelin tomorrow because my tire seems to have failed in the exact manner described in the recall. Perhaps they got the cutoff dates a bit off. 

Man, that had to be scary. Sorry to hear about the damage but glad she was able to pull off safely. 

Keep the tire. Call Michelin.

When i used to sell tires, I rarely had to set up a manufacturers claim through Michelin but when I did they were generally very good about just taking care of and keeping a customer. Most manufacturers would give me the run around and think of all kinds of excuses to not warranty a tire, I never had a problem with Michelin or BFG.

I'd say call them, they will probably direct you to one of their vendors to be inspected, but the worst they could tell you is no, but if they are anything like they used to be, I bet they take care of you.

I'm not saying it's something they should or shouldn't warranty, just that I think they will.

My many years in the industry would advise you to give them a second chance, Michelin makes some very good tires

A tire should never fail like that, but when one does I'm willing to bet there is a correlation with underinflation.

So, does "take care of you" mean a pro-rated new tire, a new replacement tire, or one of the above plus compensation for the body damage?

That’s really weird.  I suppose under the “infinite monkeys in front of infinite typewriters” theory anything can happen and you got a bum tire.  My experience with Michelin LTX tires was phenomenal, but if I suffered a failure like that i’d Certainly be calling corporate and mentioning legal action.

Tires age out.  At five years old I think a tire is used up and I am very skeptical and cautious going past that.  On something as heavy and tall as a van I wouldn't run anything older than five years, especially if my wife drove it.  I think tire manufacturers will echo the five year limit.

Good luck with Michelin.  I hope they work with you.  But a six year old tire has delivered its' expected service life.

I have done a lot of driving, commercial and otherwise. I have never seen a non-retreaded tyre fail like that. recaps fail like that all the time, but not regular car and light truck tyres. I am glad the damage was restricted to the van and your wife escaped without even getting a scratch. She got very lucky

Alternative thread title: "Birth of a road gator"

Yeah at 6 years old, you can't be surprised if any tire has a catastrophic failure. From my experience when tires die due to age, they look extremely crusty, rubber starts flaking off the outside, and then they get a large number of small leaks.

6 years is generally close to end of life for a tire that hasn't been stored in perfect storage conditions, but it's not old enough that I'd expect to see failures like that (especially if the tire wasn't cracking badly).  

Tire looked good, but was getting low on tread. Not cracked or dry rotted on the sidewalls or anything like that.

Inflation was good last I checked it, but it had been a couple months. I let a lot of the air out of it before I brought it home because I was wary that the remaining carcass could hold the pressure and I didn't want it to blow inside the van. It ended up looking a lot like a bike tire, nice and round. I will go and check the other 3 tires' pressures. I do know for a fact that the failed tire looked absolutely fine before it went and did not look under inflated at all. In retrospect I wish I would've measured the pressure before letting the air out of the remains just to see what it was.

@Gameboy, one of my neighbors was walking his dog as I was unloading the remains in the driveway and he saw the tread all laid out on the driveway and thought it was a gator.

Here is the 'gator'. I think the diagonal mark on the tire may have been where it hit and mangled my tail pipe and quarter panel. Both my wife and son who was a passenger said they did not run over anything in the road, but that it did make a vibration for a bit before it went. They pulled over and looked at all four tires a couple miles before it let go and everything looked fine, so they continued on.

Id contact Michelin I am willing to bet they will help you out. 

Two front tires are at 53 psig (55 psig is correct pressure per the sticker). The remaining rear tire is at 77 psig (recommended pressure of 80 psig). So the tires a few pounds under recommended pressures, but not grossly and probably within the accuracy of my tire pressure gauge.

Contacted Michelin. Will post follow up.

6 years is at the point that I would say they need to be changed, but to be honest, unless they've been sitting in direct sunlight for those 6 years I'd be surprised at them de-treading. 

 I’ll be the outlier here and say that six years doesn’t seem that old for a tire. I bet half the tires on my cars are over six years old and I expect no issues from them for another six. 

Michelin's warranty says it is good for 50k miles or 6 years from date of purchase whichever occurs first.

I got 32.8k miles and 5 years and 5 months out of them. Purchased the van in January 2013.

Michelin seems to want to help with new tires and perhaps even with fixing the dented bodywork caused by the tire tread letting go. The local place has to inspect the failed tire (Michelin calls it the tire "no longer in service") and then they have to call Michelin. So, not really sure what they will do, but they told me, "sorry that this issue has happened we will help get it fixed."

The catch is that I have to get new Michelin, Uniroyal or BFG tires for them to do anything for me. I canceled my order for Hankooks and ordered a new set of Michelin LTX tires.

Should know more in a day or two when the new tires arrive what exactly they will do for me, but they do seem to really care and have been responsive.

I had an entire set of Michelins fail, one at a time, over a couple of months. The tires had about 50k on them. Every one of them separated in the same way. That was my last set of Michelins. 

Sorry that happened. That's not pleasant at all.

I'd go ahead and buy some Firestones because random failures absolutely never happen. 

Toyman01 said:

I had an entire set of Michelins fail, one at a time, over a couple of months. The tires had about 50k on them. Every one of them separated in the same way. That was my last set of Michelins. 

Yes, case study vs generalization? 

I've never had a Michelin, car or bike tire fail, so whose experience means more? 

This is the problem with forums and Facebook car groups, people take one negative experience to be worth more than 10,000 positive ones. Sh!t happens.

In reply to z31maniac :

I have 4 instances of failures with having owed 4 of their tires. That's a 100% failure rate and enough for me to not buy their brand again. 

Edit. Interestingly enough, I've never had that problem with cheap Asian tires. 

I had a tire fail exactly like that many years ago, on a Chevy van, while towing a car on a dolly.  It scared the mess out of me and my passenger.  Ours was probably due to old, worn, abused tires.  The van was about 10 years old and and worn out, so the body damage sucked, but didn't affect the value of the van.  

Wow that sucks. Glad everyone is ok. Hopefully they help you out. 

So Michelin is going to give me one new tire for free as long as I opt to not file a claim for the body damage to my van.

Instead of dragging things out and having to go get two estimates and then being out of a van during the repair work, I just took the deal.