I got this in a safety email this morning. It's a video about how as tires age the tread can come loose from the wheel and cause your vehicle to go out of control.

Most of us here probably already know the dangers associated with tires in general. Some may not, so here is the link.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897

I do think they go a wee bit over board like this is some kind of major epidemic. Plus, not everyone knows how to tell when a tire is manufactured. (explained herin).

Thoughts??? Opinions???

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1987 MB 190E 2.3 16V- Name Pending
1982 MB 300SD -Old Blue
1965 Ford Mustang - Laura

I had bought some used tires for my van once. I eventaually blew a tread, and come to find out the tires ranged from 7-10 years old! Ever since then its only new tires for me.

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1984 300SD Orient Red/ Palomino
1989 560SEC
2016 Mazda 6 6 speed manual
1995 Ford F-150 reg cab 4.9 5speed manual

IMO, while the tread sep. issue from aged tires is real, I feel like they've way overblown the consequences. Most of the accidents are happening because of inexperienced/incorrect reactions to the event. I had a complete tread sep. on our '92 Aerostar van here at work and it simply got noisy and rough. I eased it to the side of the interstate and changed it... No harm done.

This is similar to the Ford Explorer roll over issue due to blow outs. Road and Track or some other car mag. tested an Explorer and basically had to TRY to make it swerve before it would roll from the blowout. A tread sep. isn't even a blow out.

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-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

Overblown, but revalent...



~Nate

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95 Honda Shadow ACE 1100.
1999 Plymouth Neon Expresso. 2.4 swap, 10.5 to 1 comp, big cams. Autocross time attack vehicle!
2012 Escape, 'hunter" (5 sp 4cyl)

...as are most tires.

I think it's overblown as well. I had a tread seperation on our 93 explorer. Tread came off completely in one piece and never lost control of the car. I also slowed down when I heard it starting to thump. I think some people get so freaked out when a tire starts to go they over react and loose control of the car.
Think of your average driver, stereo full blast, smoking, eating, drinking, beating the kids and speeding. No wonder they roll the car.

Maybe some of you pilots can weigh in on this but I heard that quite a few plane crashes occur because of the pilot forgetting what his primary job is FLY THE PLANE. When something goes wrong mechanicaly with the plane they are wondering what just happened instead of flying the plane and loose control.

If tread separation caused accidents, there would be overturned semi trucks everywhere. Somewhere I read that most tire treads you see on the road are from cars, so there would be even more crashed cars.

The point I think needs to be taken from this is to keep your spare tire fairly new. This comes from experience. After changing a flat a few years ago, my spare threw the tread within an hour, far from the nearest town.

It is possible to drive miles on the bare steel belt without the tire going flat.

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1983 300SD "Guderian"
1987 MR2
2015 Camry
2015 Chevy Spark
2006 Hyundai Tucson

Thats exactly what happened to me. I cut the sidewall on my tire so I was driving on the spare which had never seen the road and within about 50 miles the tread came right off. I was trying to get as close to home as possible.

This is true. One of the more famous incidents of this was Eastern Airlines
L1011 that crashed in the Florida Everglades. The problem was a bad landing gear light. All the crew members got wrapped up in trying to figure out if the gear was down and lock or not. The plane's autopilot was accidentally disconnected. No one was flying the plane and the plane slowly descended into to swamp.

Semi trucks tend to use retreads for the trailers and sometimes for the rear wheels of the tractors. These are likely responsible for most of the caps that you see. These tires are run in fours at each corner, so a single tread separation is not going to have the same effect as on a car. The front tires on tractors are always new tires.

I would think that the most common cause of tread separation on a car tire is overloading or underinflation. How many times do you see a car on the highway with an obviously low tire?

All the time.

The other day I noticed a middle aged woman driving a Ford Exploder with one tire that was almost completely flat, and she was oblivious to her situation.

I got beside her, rolled down my window, and was pointing to her rear time, yelling as clear as I could that she had a flat tire.

She tightly held onto the steering wheel and looked straight ahead, as if she was the victim of road rage. Sheesh.

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Paul S.

2001 E430, Bourdeaux Red, Oyster interior.
79,200 miles.

1973 280SE 4.5, 170,000 miles. 568 Signal Red, Black MB Tex. "The Red Baron".

My uncle was almost killed when the left front tire of his coach bus based RV blew out. He lost steering and went off the road, just missing some massive tree's and ended up in someones back yard. Happend in FL just north of Orlando.

You need to change those tires every 5-7 years regardless of mileage.

Trucks throw treads all the time, most of those are re-treads. However you cannot run re-treads on the front wheels because you will lose control if one blows.

A car would be much simpler to control, as long as the driver doesn't panic and slam on the brakes.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Sailing up the Maine Turnpike at 75 had the passenger rear loose tread. The back end wanted to slide around a bit, but nothing too bad. I can see where if you over react you might be SOL. Changed the tire, got to a tire dealer, and the tire still had 22 psi in it.

It probably "still had" 22 psi in it when the tread separated.

We were going on vacation- trunk fully loaded, 4 people in the car, so I'd already upped the tire pressure and adjusted the headlights.

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95 E300D working out the kinks
77 300D, 227k, station car
83 300CD 370k, gone away
89 190E 2.6- 335k, no more
79 VW FI Bus- 145k miles, summer driver
59 VW Beetle ragtop- 175k miles
12 VW Jetta- 160k miles