Bridgestone Potenza RE92 Sidewall tire blowout on a near new tire. Lexus IS250

holden j caufield · Jul 15, 2013

Jimzz · Jul 15, 2013

Being that it happened to both sides equally it makes me think it was low on air. Could be from the low driving or just a nail/leak in that tire.

Low tire pressure causes the tire to tear up on the side walls inside and will come apart.
Check the pressure in all the other tires and if worried buy a new set of long life touring tires.

NutBucket · Jul 15, 2013

RE92s might be "crap" OEM special tires but they are installed on dozens of cars from the factory. I doubt there is any major design flaw with them. Maybe just a manufacturing defect on a single tire.

LTC8K6 · Jul 15, 2013

Would your mom ignore a low tire pressure warning?

Jimzz · Jul 15, 2013

LTC8K6 said:
Would your mom ignore a low tire pressure warning?

My SiLs lexus 350 Convt. has freaking a million lights on when driving. I thought there was something wrong till I read the book and the light on meant the system was working. So I can see someone ignoring it, esp if they don't drive much or know cars well.

LTC8K6 · Jul 15, 2013

Jimzz said:
My SiLs lexus 350 Convt. has freaking a million lights on when driving. I thought there was something wrong till I read the book and the light on meant the system was working. So I can see someone ignoring it, esp if they don't drive much or know cars well.

Strange that it apparently doesn't give the warning on the message center in addition to having the light come on.

My 08 Jeep has the light and the message, telling you which tire, including if it's the spare.

SithSolo1 · Jul 15, 2013

My Infiniti gives a loud, audible warning anytime you start the car with low tire pressure or if it goes low while driving and illuminates an icon on the dash. I would assume Lexus has something similar?

LTC8K6 · Jul 15, 2013

Yeah, I forgot that the Jeep also gives a warning BONG sound to tell you to look at the message center.

7window · Jul 15, 2013

Never seen anything like that on a new car. The dealer can say that your mom had a flat and she drove it for a long time while it was flat. If they acknowledge tire defect then there is liability

hans007 · Jul 15, 2013

If this is250 doesn't have nav it doesn't have a screen to shown messages and might just have a light that isn't noticeable.

There are lots of is250s on the road with those tires so I'm guessing either its just your moms tires or user error

Kelvrick · Jul 15, 2013

I doubt you're getting new set of tires on a two year old car with 8k miles on it. If anything, one new tire prorated, MAYBE two. Prorated of course and the same kind.

holden j caufield · Jul 15, 2013

ok thanks. It has tpms and it should make it audible noise if it senses error, which she says she didn't hear. I'm worried it maybe the same batch of tires and this is a major safety issue.

phucheneh · Jul 15, 2013

It is not a 'bad batch of tires.' She drove on a flat tire until it disintegrated. Period.

'Blow-out' is a made-up term to make people feel better about it, as if it could not be prevented.

7window · Jul 15, 2013

phucheneh said:
It is not a 'bad batch of tires.' She drove on a flat tire until it disintegrated. Period.

'Blow-out' is a made-up term to make people feel better about it, as if it could not be prevented.

It looks that way. After reading the post I was picturing blow-out in a different way. When I saw the picture with thread seperation it looks like it was driven with a flat tire. Thread seperation usually happens on rethreads or driven with a flat tire. Two big holes or gash on both side might mean bad batch but it will be hard to prove.

I would look for used tires at craigslist if money is an issue here.

corinthos · Jul 15, 2013

phucheneh said:
It is not a 'bad batch of tires.' She drove on a flat tire until it disintegrated. Period.

'Blow-out' is a made-up term to make people feel better about it, as if it could not be prevented.

1. do you know if the tire pressure was right for that tire, or possibly over/under inflated?
2. what damage was it on the sidewall? if it was a slash, how long was it and was it vertical or horizontal?
3. did she hear or see anything on the road that she may have hit?
4. was there anything visually strange about the tire/sidewall (lumps/bumps/indents)?

I just had my driver's side rear tire blow out last week.. 3" vertical slash about a couple of inches from the rim.. didn't see anything on road I may have hit that would have caused that.. seemed to hear something that hit under my car that sounded like a rock that hit under the wheel well just before I realized there was a flat and I had to pull over.. but not sure if that was related..

On my tires, I see that my driver side front tire has a small indent on one part of the tire's sidewall, and the other 3 don't have this indent. I don't remember if my blown out tire has the indent, but based on what I've read, indents are considered normal and not indicative of tire separation internally. Still kind of curious that my 2-3" slash was in about the same location as where an indent would appear on sidewall...

In my case, dealer says it doesn't look like a defect but that I hit something. I don't have any special extended tire coverage, so the damage wasn't covered for a replacement and tire could not be repaired. I had to buy a new tire.

I hope it's not a known issue with my Continential tires and this is an isolated incident for me.. otherwise, I may be better off trading them in and getting something different from a tire company that offers extended coverage for another $6-10.

FuzzyDunlop · Jul 15, 2013

lol. I wonder how far she drove on it while flat.

zoiks · Jul 15, 2013

Interesting. I see a problem on 2 of the tires on my wife's IS250 as well. The tire is different however. This is a Hankook Ventus evo v12. Just bought the tires last year too.

NutBucket · Jul 15, 2013

That looks like damage from an impact based on the corresponding damage on the wheel itself.

zoiks · Jul 15, 2013

NutBucket said:
That looks like damage from an impact based on the corresponding damage on the wheel itself.

Yeah. I agree as well. Although I've never had anything like this happen to me ever. Are tires supposed to rip this easily? The wheel rash is there but I've had worse.

Jimzz · Jul 15, 2013

zoiks said:
Yeah. I agree as well. Although I've never had anything like this happen to me ever. Are tires supposed to rip this easily? The wheel rash is there but I've had worse.

Tires are softer than the wheel so if the wheel lost a piece then the tire will also.

vshah · Jul 15, 2013

often if you hit the curb at the right spot (gap in the concrete, metal curb cover etc) it can easily rip into a tire.

7window · Jul 15, 2013

zoiks said:
Yeah. I agree as well. Although I've never had anything like this happen to me ever. Are tires supposed to rip this easily? The wheel rash is there but I've had worse.

If you go to discount tire they will show three grades of tires. It usually in their display.
cheap tires = soft rubber
middle value = Not too hard not too soft
expensive = hard rubber

In your case it might be a cheap tire(soft rubber).

NutBucket · Jul 15, 2013

Those Hankooks zoiks posted about are actually quite good despite being relatively inexpensive.

AmdEmAll · Jul 16, 2013

RE92 is the worst tire ever made period

Ask any Subaru owner

JulesMaximus · Jul 16, 2013

holden j caufield said:
ok thanks. It has tpms and it should make it audible noise if it senses error, which she says she didn't hear. I'm worried it maybe the same batch of tires and this is a major safety issue.

My wife drives an IS250 and it has the TPMS but it does not make any noise when it detects a tire that is low on air. It is pretty sensitive to pressure changes though. If it goes below 30psi it will throw a warning light on the dash. Not sure how you could miss it quite frankly. Whenever hers goes off I check all four and usually find one that is at 29psi so I fill them all up to 34psi.

Maybe hers are not working properly? Sounds to me like she drove on tires that were severly underinflated. That will tear the crap out of the sidewall and cause a failure like you're describing. I've never heard of properly inflated tires failing in this manner on their own and certainly not two on the same car. It is almost certainly not a "bad batch" of tires.

Edit-Many years ago I had a right rear tire go down on a car while I was driving at around 50mph and pulled over immediately but it had already chewed up the sidewall almost as badly as the one in your pics. It doesn't take long. I had picked up a nail or screw and it went flat while I was driving. Maybe she ran over something and it just happened to take out both rear tires?

Just have to suck it up and buy two new rear tires.

Bridgestone Potenza RE92 Sidewall tire blowout on a near new tire. Lexus IS250

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