Travelling up the M42 yesterday in the Avensis there was a loud bang as the rear tyre blew out. Fortunately I was not in a hurry and doing about 60/65 in lane 2. The smart element of the motorway was not in use and the hard shoulder was for its original purpose. I was about 100m from a refuge area, pulled over and drove slowly to it to avoid as far as possible damage to the rim.
The Avensis has a skinny spare so fitted that, got off the motorway as soon as possible and drove to the nearest town. Top marks to Protyre who were efficient, cheerful and professional. On our way again with the new tyre and arrived an hour late.
OK so it happens from time to time, but could have been so much worse had it been a front tyre. The interesting part to me was that they found an 8” long piece of 1” angle iron actually in the tyre, complete with a nut and bolt in one end. They had never seen anything like this before apparently. It had effectively speared the tyre. That probably accounts for why we saw, as we left the refuge area, signs saying “beware debris on road”. They weren’t wrong. We count ourselves very fortunate.
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When I blew a rear tyre on the M4 thirty years ago I spun through 360 degrees twice. Fortunately it was at 6.00am with little traffic and I was in the middle lane having overtaken a truck, and just avoided the centre barrier or any impact with the bank against which i came to a gentle halt. I had been cruising at about 80 at the time.
I'm given to understand that a front blowout is more controllable than one on the rear as you still have some input through the steering wheel. When the back goes violently you are in the lap of the Gods.
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à la Stroll and Verstappen.
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I was able to brake and pull across to the hard shoulder with minimal drama. Speed was low, traffic light. It could have been so much worse. Coming up the M40 on the other carriage way a car on its roof was being recovered. That could so easily have been us,
Certainly I know a rear wheel skid can be much more difficult if not impossible to control than a front, I was under the impression that a front tyre blowing out was more potentially catastrophic due to the immediacy of loss of control and direction. Anyway, let’s hope none of us find out the hard way.
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>> I was under the impression that a front tyre blowing out was more potentially catastrophic due to the immediacy of loss of control and direction.
Since about the '80s, 'negative offset steering geometry' was introduced. This effectively puts the steering pivot outside the centre line of the wheel. If say a front left deflates, that will try to drag the car to the left, but the wheel will try to turn right and the two will counteract each other to a degree.
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What was the record you broke?
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>> What was the record you broke?
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If my experience was anything to go by, the biggest turd he's ever dropped ;-)
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The record? The largest piece of metal found by the fitters inside a tyre. Not uncommon for the casing to be penetrated apparently. A surprisingly turdless experience. Just a pain in the heat that day having to unload, jack it up, lower it again as the rim was stuck to the hub and so on.
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Mate had an Escort RS Turbo (insured as a 1.3 with bodykit...) in the very late 80s and was driving home (quickly) at 6am after a shift at work whem he felt a thump on the car.
Drove the rest of the way home without issue, and found a length of steel protruding from the front of one of the sills, presumably kicked up from the road by a front tyre.
Easy enough repair (he had been a YTS body repair mechanic) but if it could punch through a car body I suspect a motorcyclist would fare less well.
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Toyota Avensis - Broke the record - Robin O'Reliant
