This was kind of news to us! My wife was taking our freshly de-winterized Westy for its first trip of the year (winter has been a little longggg here in CO) and in the middle of I-25 in downtown Denver she experienced the tread separating from the left rear tire (a Michelin LTX A/T2). Fortunately she was able to maintain control of the vehicle and get safely to the shoulder (albeit in a position without enough room to safely exit). After a CDOT Safety Patrol was kind enough to take care of swapping out the spare for the destroyed tire (see pic) she got as far as Pueblo before another vibration similar to what occurred immediately prior to the Denver incident started all over again. She was close to an exit that just happened to have a tire store she stumbled upon. They quickly determined from the DOT codes on our tires that despite looking good from the tread standpoint, they were manufactured in 2007 and in the tire world they were all kaput.
Since our tread was great from the low miles and the rig is stored garaged and out of the UV light and were rotated regularly I had figured they had plenty more life left.
So far all we are aware of is some cosmetic damage to the left rear of the vehicle from the tire coming apart at speed--we're having it looked at this next week. But this could have easily resulted in a serious accident. Thus, I am hoping someone else who is as ignorant about tire life as I was can avoid our scenario!
A link with some useful info:
https://www.edmunds.com/car-maintenance/how-old-and-dangerous-are-your-tires.html
PS - A shout out to Belmont Tire Car Care Center in Pueblo, CO who helped out a ton--they didn't have the right size tires to install that afternoon but "lent" a used tire that allowed my wife to travel a few miles to a campground to spend the night. The next morning they hooked her up with a new set of 4 tires (and since they didn't have a 5th available, kindly installed the "best" of the old tires to the spare rim until we can replace it too).
Since our tread was great from the low miles and the rig is stored garaged and out of the UV light and were rotated regularly I had figured they had plenty more life left.
So far all we are aware of is some cosmetic damage to the left rear of the vehicle from the tire coming apart at speed--we're having it looked at this next week. But this could have easily resulted in a serious accident. Thus, I am hoping someone else who is as ignorant about tire life as I was can avoid our scenario!
A link with some useful info:
https://www.edmunds.com/car-maintenance/how-old-and-dangerous-are-your-tires.html
PS - A shout out to Belmont Tire Car Care Center in Pueblo, CO who helped out a ton--they didn't have the right size tires to install that afternoon but "lent" a used tire that allowed my wife to travel a few miles to a campground to spend the night. The next morning they hooked her up with a new set of 4 tires (and since they didn't have a 5th available, kindly installed the "best" of the old tires to the spare rim until we can replace it too).
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