Happy first ever blowout! The only thing scary about it was the massive BOOM! of the tire blowing out. I was in 5pm rush hour mainstreet traffic and the car handled really well after the blowout and maintained a straight line no problem. I pulled into a car park to inspect the damage. Warning: Hipster alert: The wife playing the banjo, wearing a hoodie and white raybans was way too hipster a thing to witness without taking a phone pic and uploading it to her facebook to mock. Since I am so mainstream (and we still had toyota care) I called the number on my keychain and they sent a tow truck after 5 mins of questions. It came within the hour, he inflated the spare etc and installed it at no cost. I also had road assistance/tire protection so it did not cost me. Only hassle was I just got a call and the dealership said it would take 3 days to get the right tire. I did not see anything in the road that penetrated the tire, and the hole was pretty small. I was a bit wary about cancelling my AAA because I had Toyota care, but they came through for me.
Sorry to hear about your tire. Did you hit something or did it blow out without an obvious event? If the latter.... 1. How is the wear on the tires? are they wearing prematurely on the edges? How much tread is left? 2. When was the last time you measured the tire pressures? 3. What are the tire pressures of the other tires? Tires that are underinflated will flex more and build up heat causing a blow out. Edgewear is a common symptom of underinflated tires.
^^4. did you tip the tow truck driver? So many peeps will tip for a bad haircut, but won't tip a guy/gal that puts their life on the line day in, day out.
The pressure was fine. I had him check the other tyres pressure while he was there and they were all spot on. I had checked it that week. I am paranoid about that, plus you get a warning light if it is low right? There is about 34k miles on the tires and they look fine. I did not see any debris on the road. Just boom! He looked for anything obvious stuck in there, or rattling on the rim and there was nothing.
Nope. I never knew that was correct etiquette etc. I thought you generally tip people on low wages (pizza delivery, hairdressers, waiters etc etc). I am British so I'm not exactly clued up on that type of thing.
I'd be concerned about one new and three different sized older tires, you might consider buying one more new one and then rotate in two new ones instead of 1 new one.
Was the hole a nailhole or a finger-size one ? If it was a blowout - a sudden loss of air - a true blowout the TPMS would not be of use. If the hole was from a nail then the loss of air would be more gradual and thus TPMS would be of use. The probability is if you can see the hole it likely from a piece of glass or bottleneck, and such will result in a blowout and that also means great difficulty in controlling a vehicle. Glad you were merely slightly inconvienced.
Laughing my nice person off, the comment about it being the left tire regisered after re-reading the initial post! That was great!! I don't think I would have ever gotten it if you didn't say something.
