Buggered tyre (Touran- 195/65 15 91H)

[insanitybeard]

Had a phone call from the partner early(ish!) on Sunday morning (whilst I was still in bed) as she was on her way back from work with words to the effect of 'my car is making a horrible noise, I drove it as far as I could before the noise got so bad I had to stop, and now one of the back tyres is completely flat'.    So off to the rescue I go, sure enough, offside rear tyre completely flat, I try inflating it to see how bad the damage is and how quickly it's losing air- and it's leaking from the sidewall. Great, that'll be a new tyre then, couldn't have happened to one of the front tyres that needs changing soon, no, had to be the rear- which has a good 5-6mm of tread left . I shove a self tapping screw into the point of leakage just to allow her to drive it slowly home a mile up the road so I can take a proper look. I've seen a few knackered tyres in my time but never one as knackered as this- the inner sidewall has umpteen bulges (admittedly probably caused by driving it flat and breaking most of the internal cords in the sidewall) but what perplexes me is what caused it to lose pressure in the first place- apart from the small leak in the sidewall there don't appear to be any other leakage points and I'm not sure if the sidewall leak was caused by the damaged cords or something else.

Anyway, it's all academic as it needs a new tyre regardless. Most fitters are closed Sundays (why did it have to happen on a Sunday?!) but a couple of local fitters were open- National only had a "premium branded Bridgestone tyre in stock sir, best price I can do that for is Ã,£104......."  Sod that, thinks I, I'll give good old Kwik Fit a try- ended up getting a Goodyear at Ã,£65 fitted (which admittedly was helped by them having a 25% discount on Goodyear tyres this month) so I didn't feel quite as reamed.....

So got the car back on the road same day which was good (our Touran is a 7 seater which means it doesn't have a spare wheel, it's just got an inflator kit and one of those bottles of gunk), the size of tyre fitted to our basic spec '55 plate TDI 'S' model Touran with steel rims is 195/65 15 91H.

Just as a side note I was comparing prices of the tyres fitted to the Touran (size as above) compared to the tyres fitted to the Mk2 Gal (215/55 16 97W), and what a difference in price! Admittedly the Galaxy tyres are bigger (but lets be honest, not a whole lot bigger) and have a higher load and speed rating, but Kwik Fit's online price for a Goodyear tyre for the Touran is Ã,£55 fitted (other premium brands are all similarly priced), a tyre for the Galaxy in a comparable brand is Ã,£95 fitted! 

Picture of the old tyre sidewall after being run flat and re-inflated to allow the vehicle to be driven (gently!) home- not good!:

[attachimg=1]

[Mirez]

Ouch! Thats the sign of a tyre thats been driven for some time whilst flat, the bobbling effect is where it gets 'folded' on itself as it goes under the wheel.

Does the touran tyre have to be reinforced?

[johnnyroper]

That's well knackered,reckon it failed internally to cause the bulges then lost pressure?

I have noticed the reinforced galaxy tyres can be pricy, just got 2 uniroyal rain grip 205/55/16 91v  Ã,£100 fitted for my x type,when I got a set for the galaxy in spring they were about Ã,£100 a piece.

Reminds me a bit of my ex in my old 306 gti. It was moving house day and we had gone to pick up a Luton van on hire I was doing about 50 on dual carriageway when she overtook me arse end of car had a lean on and was making a right row. 6 miles later when I got home tyre was smoking hot and had some grooves worn in to sidewall.
I asked if she heard the noise and if car felt funny...... her reply I did notice something so turned radio up!!!! Needless to say she never drove any of my cars after that.

[insanitybeard]

Yes, whilst not wishing to cause offence some drivers (male and female!) are completely apathetical when it comes to mechanical stuff, and if given the chance can and will drive on until it will drive no more- either because something breaks or they crash!
I've just crunched the vehicle reg into Kwik-Fits' website and it comes up with 195/65 H15 as being a standard fitment tyre for the vehicle, the tyres it then offers in this size are virtually all 91 load rating (there's only one reinforced option that comes up and that's a 95 rated budget tyre) so I think it's got the right spec tyres on it. I suppose unlike the Galaxy it's not a dedicated people carrier and as such isn't intended to carry the same load- the 2 rearmost seats could best be described as suitable only really for short trips, unless you're transporting kids where the very limited space in the back (third) row is less of an issue.

The tyre that failed was an Avon so a decent brand, if it did fail internally then that's not good! We did encounter some lumps of masonry in the road the other day which had fallen off of a lorry or something, my partner tried to steer around them and seems to think that she succeeded, although there was a clonk as we passed over them- I thought it was a suspension component that it had hit but if it was the tyre then I suppose it could have damaged the tyre structure and led to this kind of failure.

[johnnyroper]

Sounds like a possible explanation.
On the plus side it could have blown out at speed so would have been a lot worse than a noise.