Tires can make or break a vacation!!

[Commtech]

Well my Dunlops bit the dust this week. It has been a real rough one.
I went to Outer Banks for vacation this week with the family, drove the Ex so I could get out on the sand for some wheeling. As soon as I crossed the bridge, hit some slow traffic and noticed my front end was "wobbling". We stopped at the Info Center and while wife went in to get brochures, I visually checked tires. I immediately found a "bubble" in the tread of the Front Passenger Side Tire.
I decided we would go to the cottage and swap the tire out, and get my father to bring me a new Dunlap from Richmond when he came down later that week (NO ONE sells Dunlaps in the Outer Banks).
While swapping the tire for the spare, found out I couldn't use my spare rim on the front of the Ex (the center hole would not fit over my hubs!!)... It seems that the person who owned this before me got the spare rim replaced.

It gets even better!!!

The next day I have the spare mounted on the good rim, and on the way back to the cottage noticed the same "wobble". Checking again shows that I also have a "bubble" on the tread of the Passenger Side Rear! When my father arrived Tuesday I had the new tire put on the Spare rim and swapped out the offending rear tire.
I had no choice but to save the rear as a spare, since I was unable to get another tire to replace it. And since I still had a good bit of tread on all the tires, had no indication I needed to replace them and wanted just to buy what I needed.

Then....

I drove out to the store and noticed a faint "wobble" still in the care when driving 5- 10mph... I knew what it was, another "bubble" somewhere else. I knew I was going to be in for at least 3 new tires now (the NEW spare just rotated out to the road in Oct) and just had to limp home, hoping I didn't have a flat or blowout.

At the shop today (Sears) the salesman asked me if I had been driving a lot of highway miles, as the tires looked like they had been overheating. I average 11-12k a year as a daily driver with maybe 1 or 2 trips a year of over 2hrs driving. He said that he noticed blisters from the belts heating up and that the tires showed dry rot, and that he usually see's this kind of wear on dumptrucks. These tires were 6 plys, and still had almost half of the tread left on them.

Granted, I have had these on for 4 years, and gotten 70k miles. But has anyone else seen this in thier tires? I am not complaining about the tires, they lasted forever. But I would have expected 6 ply tires to hold up better on a passenger car than that (heat damage).

I ended up with 4 new Dunlops (4 ply this time though), and am keeping the new 6ply as a spare.

This was a LONG week worrying about tires!!!!

 

[SiLenZe]

you stuck with dunlops even though 4 went bad?

 

[JTX]

That really does suck... You should have went with a different brand after all the bs you went threw. Just my 2 cents.

P.S. Glad to see you got home safe.

 

[jimbo74]

dunlops are crap to begin with... anything dunlop sucks... as for overheating, they shouldnt have, unless you were exceeding the speed rating on them and/or had them improperly inflated

i have never heard of all the tires going bad at the same time like that... you might have a warranty issue with dunlop... did you save them? i would call dunlop customer service and at least voice your ordeal..... 4 tires gone bad on 1 trip.... unless you were constantly hoping curbs at speed, its blatant crap tires or lack of maintenance that would develop bubbles like that

 

[Commtech]

I went back to the Sears I bought them from, and I did get a deal on the new ones. The salesman told me the tires only had a 60k mile warrenty on them and I had gone past that, so there was no warrenty left on them. I think I will send a letter to Dunlop to see what their take is on them.

As far as what how they preformed I have no real complaint up until last week, and I did get my milage out of them. The reason I stayed with the Dunlop is because I already had 1 new one that I had used for several days and could not return ($). Now with the 4 plys I have seen a softer ride also. The 4 ply's I bought are the same tire as the 6 ply and has the same size and diameter, so if I have to use it, there should be no problem...

 

[james t]

you stuck with dunlops even though 4 went bad?

If im reading correctly, he had 70,000 miles on them. I wouldnt say they "went bad" at 70k miles...

 

[SVO]

If im reading correctly, he had 70,000 miles on them. I wouldnt say they "went bad" at 70k miles...

I agree, plus 4 years

 

[boominXplorer]

yeah i would suggest a more of a performance type tire but if you can get to 70k and then start having problems it wouldn't be worth the extra money. This time around just plan on replacing them around 60k to aviod problems

 

[AspenX]

I wouldn't know anything about getting 70,000 miles on a set of tires.


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