You’re driving along and hear a loud boom. Your vehicle lurches and suddenly becomes difficult to control. Your bouncing and swerving; you fight to pull over to safety. What just happened? You flip on your hazard lights and get out of your car, you have a flat tire. You realize the boom was tire blowouts. How did that happen? AutoFix has the answer. Here are six common causes of tire blowouts.
1. Road Damage
The road is a dangerous place. Debris and potholes can wipe out a tire quicker than anything else can. You can blow out a tire when you hit a pothole or run over a large object. You can also blow out a tire if you run over glass, a nail, or hit a curb. Your tires are particularly susceptible if they are already worn.
2. Too Much Weight
Your vehicle has weight restrictions just as semi-trucks have weight restrictions. If you overload your vehicle, you place undue stress on your tires. If you have uneven tread wear on your tires, which happens if you don’t rotate them regularly, the weight can cause the weakest tire to blow out.
3. Punctures
You may have run over a nail months ago and never realized it, but what’s going on inside of your tire sets it up for a blowout. As air seeps out around the nail, your tire weakens. Over time, this wears down the sides of the tire and it will eventually blow if you don’t get the nail removed and tire repaired.
4. Low Air
This is also why underinflated tires pose a high risk for blowing out. As with the nail, low air pressure in a tire causes wear on the sides. The sides of your tires are thinner than the tread that meets the road surface. Low air pressure creates weak spots through which the air can blast through, i.e. blow out.
5. Uneven Tread
You might have thought “I have to get tires rotated” when you read mention of it above and if you are overdue for a rotation, please get it done. Tires that aren’t rotated per the manufacturer’s recommendation wear down unevenly, and this uneven tread wear increases your risk of blowouts.
6. Old or Defective Tires
Finally, if your tires are old and need to be replaced but you fail to do so, you’re just asking for a blowout. If they are defective, which can happen, they may blow out due to the manufacturer’s error. Have your tires inspected every 6,000 miles to make sure they are a-okay and honor any recalls.
We are AutoFix and our shop is located in Franklin, TN. Call us today to set up a tire inspection and service.
