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Subject The good news is that my AVS wheel is OK...
     
Posted by Dave N on July 18, 2006 at 9:12 AM
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Message Oh, and I'm fine too :-P (BTW – I blame ZXRider for this)

Driving home on the highway yesterday in 100°F heat and traveling with the flow of traffic (~ 75 mph). As I get up to speed and settle in for the ride home I noticed a vibration that I haven’t felt before. So I start going through my mental checklist of what could be the problem: 1) CSB? Shift to 4th, no change in vibration, 2) Loose lug nuts? Recalling back to the last time I had the wheel off and remembering that I specifically torqued the lug nuts, 3) Lost a wheel weight? Perhaps, given the heat that we’re having – maybe I should find a safe spot to pull over and check it out…

It was right at this point when the vibration worsens, and I see smoke coming from the right rear of the car. For a moment I thought maybe a turbo went or something along those lines. I start to move to the right and as I’m in the middle lane, the right rear tire lets loose completely. I manage to get off the highway safely and without any drama. My first thought is that the AVS wheel is toast. I get out and walk around to check out the damage and was completely surprised to see that the tire totaly separated at the sidewalls. And thankfully, there was enough sidewall left to prevent any damage to the wheel itself.

I suspect that the tire started losing pressure – I did do a visual check of the tire the day before and had checked the pressures with a gauge a week ago. I’m not a tire expert, but this seems to be what would happen if a tire was being run with next to no pressure (or none altogether). What’s strange is that the car wasn’t sagging to the right side. I do recall the back end getting a little loose but I was driving through a construction area that I haven’t been through before and thought that perhaps it was from the construction. There is no through hole from a nail or anything like that – the only possibility I can think of is that I had the tire patched about a year ago for a nail puncture and I wonder if the heat caused it to have a slow leak. Like I said, the ambient temps were around 100°F which means the pavement temps were significantly higher than that.

I ended up putting on the temporary spare and then called my wife and asked her to grab my two rear stockers and meet me with them. I drove a couple miles to get off the highway and then another mile to a parking lot to wait for my wife. Then I swapped wheels and drove home wondering how many ricers would find my wheel combination HAWT Y0!

OK, on to the pictures (not for the easily nauseated).

I never would have expected the sidewalls to stay in place long enough for me to get off the road.

Tire remnants - I can still smell the burning rubber stench today and I'm no where near the tire!

(Insert ni[X]it 'thumbs up' picture here....)




LOL! My front wheels are wider than my rears at the moment. (And no, I'm not driving the Z this way - new rear tires will be ordered today).

Dave

Little did Bob realize that Harold discovered the elusive "brown note" and was about to put the theory to test



Sig Quotes:

"Your sausage scares me!" - TT-XTZ 6/13/05

"Or he's having a rough week like the rest of us and decided to take out his agressions of not being breast fed on me." BigTDogg 15:45, 09/25/03

"Pick her up from day care and take her to Dairy Queen for a snow cone." YugoBernie 1/7/04

of course those are canadian bannings and beatings, which after the conversion rate is really only a "hey! stop that!" Chris(NJ) 1/14/04

see the green "n" next to my name? what's COZ? (n/m) - 300zx88 8/11/04

It really does look like you except a straight version.. - Spongerider :) 11/11/04

     
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