About 3 years and 25,000 miles ago, I am driving my '93 Sport with ATX tires down the road at 35 mph and all of a sudden I hear a loud WAP WAP WAP WAP coming from the right front wheel well. I stop and walk around the vehicle, look under the vehicle, look around the vehicle, check the street fore and aft of the vehicle, check the tires, look at everything again and I do not find anything unusual. I get back into my Explorer and drive off and everything seems to be okay and to this day I have not heard a repeat of this mysterious noise (same ATX tires).

Now I am wondering whether a portion of the tread on my front right tire became partially detached that day, made the noise, and somehow re-attached itself. Is that possible?

If that happened, don't think it could hide itself for 3 years and 25k. But hey, ya never know! Did ya ever check out the tread really well? Try moving the tread around with your fingers and look for cracks. I really don't see how it could seperated and go back and stay safe for that long. Is it possible ya ran over something and it came off before ya stopped it it landed too far away for you to see? Hope this helps..if you have not heard that sound again for this long...I wouldn't worry about it.

Ah, so your the bastard who ran over my grandma!

nick

happened to me . thats my geuss . good luck

Or perhaps a detached Firestone tread....

Pieces of tread laying in the road... also known as 'gators' http://smilecwm.tripod.com/cwm2/cwm29.gif . (Just another worthless piece of trivia.)

Thanx for the input.

I did check tires for cracks and I didn't find anything and I agree that after 3 years and 25k miles with no re-occurance, it's unlikely to happen again.

It's just that I would think something that made that much noise would have been pretty obvious. I really did check things out and I saw no debris on the street or in the tread of the tires.

I guess I'll just attribute it to a grandma 'gator that I overlooked.

I just want to know how you only put 25k in 3 years. Dang I put that in about a year and half. Oh well. Hope it wasn't your neighbors pet.