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it took to move to the shoulder. The sidewalls being destroyed like that usually happens from heat buildup due to a low tire. I had a similar situation happen to me on my A520's. I was doing 85+ in the fast lane heading into Dallas. The car felt fine, no pulling, odd noises, etc. There was a piece of debris in my lane so I steered smoothly to avoid it. As I did, the car felt "mushy" and the back end sloppy. Uh-oh I thought, low tire and headed across the 4 lanes to the outside shoulder. Before I got to the shoulder "SLAP, SLAP, SLAP...." and you could hear bits of stuff hitting the wheelwell. I got out and the rim was just sitting on the deflated tire. Like you, I got lucky and did no damage at all to the rim. I jacked it up and pulled off the tire. The entire inside sidewall was gone, even more than yours. You could run your hand through the space, all the way around the tire. The thing about low-profile tires(yours being even moreso) is that it is hard to tell if they are low on air unless the get really low. My tire that went out was my driverside rear, and the way I park my car that is the tire I walk by to get in the car everytime. It was fine on the drive home from work, then it sat an hour before I drove it again, I didn't see anything obvious, but I may have run over something and had a leak. I guess what I'm getting at, is that looks like a heat buildup failure from sidewall flex, and I don't think it happens in a matter of seconds pulling over after losing air. My bet it you hit that piece a while before and were low on air and didn't notice it. Like I said, I couldn't even tell my tire was that low untill I swerved, and at that point it basically started comming apart. I'm paranoid about tire pressure now, and check it often. So paranoid, that if I am on an unfamiliar road and it it overly rough I will often pull over and check my tires to make sure it is not a low tire again. Sux you had to lose a tire tho, I had gotten mine from Tirerack and only had a few 1000 miles on it and had to suck it up and buy a new tire. Mike
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