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Bulges on tyres


SabrinaF
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Once I saw a man carrying a van tyre complaining about bulge on it. It was the first incident I saw like that in my life. I was wondering how it could be. What is the cause for this? As I felt, it was  a very dangerous condition as there is a chance to explode the tyre suddenly  it when someone was driving a vehicle with a tyre  like that.

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I've seen that happen once which was on my late grandfather's car. It was a 1983 Citroen BX, 10 years old at that point with only 19k on the clock, and had been stored in a garage for a year or so since his death. I took it out for a short drive and there was a thud-thud-thud-thud which increased with road speed. On examining the tyres one of the rears had a noticeable bulge in the tread area, and there were the ends of wires from the steel belts poking through the rubber. The tyre was one of the original Michelins from when the car was new, so 10 years old. I think a combination of age and perhaps being parked in the same position without moving for 12 months had finished it off.

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Would suggest the most common cause of bulges is driving hard up curbstones or hitting a deep pot holes, they do not necessarily bulge out at time of impact, but typically weaken the sidewall and the bulge comes out later.

Equally they can happen on brand new tyres, had one develop in the first few miles on a new Dunlop tyre  and causing vibration, the fitters had to return to Dunlop for examination and they agreed it was a manufacturing defect and refunded.

Its wise to examine the tyres of bulges and similar damage everytime you check the tyre pressures,  a tyre bulge is also an instant MOT failure.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/16/2020 at 4:30 PM, yossarian247 said:

I've seen that happen once which was on my late grandfather's car. It was a 1983 Citroen BX, 10 years old at that point with only 19k on the clock, and had been stored in a garage for a year or so since his death. I took it out for a short drive and there was a thud-thud-thud-thud which increased with road speed. On examining the tyres one of the rears had a noticeable bulge in the tread area, and there were the ends of wires from the steel belts poking through the rubber. The tyre was one of the original Michelins from when the car was new, so 10 years old. I think a combination of age and perhaps being parked in the same position without moving for 12 months had finished it off.

perhaps tire may have an expire date printed on it.10 years could be too old to use

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  • 1 year later...

Cars in Ireland fail their NCT (MOT) if tyres are more than six years old.

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1 minute ago, Bernard Foy said:

Cars in Ireland fail their NCT (MOT) if tyres are more than six years old.

That sounds like good sense.

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I have this happen to me after I curbed the vehicle I was driving trying to avoid another driver who was driving like a loon, I was really annoyed as the tyre was only a few month old.  I changed it immediately as, a few years earlier I had the misfortune of passing a lorry on the motorway and which had one of its tyres explode while I was along side,  there was no way I wanted a tyre to explode like that while I was driving.

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I've had a blowout on the motorway at 70mph. It's not fun. Happened in a new car too. The car was about 3 months old. I still have no idea what caused it.

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  • 7 months later...

Having worked for a major tyre manufacturer for many years I can tell you that the primary cause of the (sidewall) bulges is something referred to as a pinch rupture. As many posts state, this often occurs following driving over a kerb, debris in the road or, (increasingly!) driving over a pothole. The fabric (radial) cords in the tyre are creased sharply causing them to greatly weaken or break completely, much in the way a paperclip does if you bend it sharply several times. These cords are the only thing that stop the casing of the tyre being a big rubber balloon, so in the broken area, the rubber simply inflates as far as the pressure inside dictates. Any cut or impact on this bulge will cause an instant rapid deflation, or 'blowout'. It is indeed a reason to not drive at all on a tyre you see a bulge!

Interestingly, the same effect happens, due to the repeated over bending of the cords, when a tyre is driven on at very low pressures, though the deterioration inside the tyre is often visible first. The only way to properly  examine for this kind of deterioration is by removing the tyre from the wheel and doing an internal examination, so don't be tempted just to pump it up and drive. I can assure you I would not knowingly get into a car that had run on an underinflated tyre!

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Yeah, and it's also why you need to stop as soon as possible, as driving on a flat tyre will start to damage it internally and then it becomes dangerous to plug it: 

 

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