Late last night (early this morning) I had a tire blow-out on the highway. I was kind of sleepy while driving home and ran over something, but didn't think much of it. About a half-mile later my right-rear tire blows-out and I immediately pull over. Much to my dismay I see the entire outer sidewall apart from the rest of the tire. It was inside the rim, and lucky the tire managed to stay on the rim with the inside wall. This pretty much saved my wheel.

My question is this, any chance I can get this tire replaced for free? I have the original receipt and it is less than a year old. I can't see any place where the item I ran over cut the tire so I have no idea what happened.

My plan is to call the place I bought the tire from on Monday and see what they say. It was just really weird...never seen that happen before.

Anybody else see this happen with one of their tires? BTW....the tires are Falken ZIEX ZE512's. They have been performing great up till now.

 

It's somewhat doubtful that you'll be able to get them replaced unless you have some sort of road hazard warranty. I have gotten into the habbit of always getting the extra warranty when I get new tires, just because of the number of tire problems I've had. A road hazard warranty is usually something like $10/tire (at least at NTB where I usually get tires) and they will replace for example a tire that failed with %80 tread left for %20 the sticker price. Well worth the price whatever you decide to do...especially on expensive tires.

Give the place you got them and the manufacturer a call though...you might get lucky.

 

True...but this is a sidewall blow out. I mean the sidewall literally blew clean off the rest of the tire. I can understand a puncture or a small tear, but a sidewall blow out? To me that spells manufacturer's defect.