Team-BHP - One hard breaking and new Goodyear tyres are gone. Need help

Team, I have a Optra magnum 11months old, done 15k kms so far, it has Goodyear GT3 195/65/15 tyres. A very weird incident happened when I was driving down on highway at night. I was cruising at about 100kmph and I had to break suddenly as there was broken road ahead with no diversion notice, it was pretty close by the time I realized I have to break, I usually release the break and floor it again to avoid skidding but this time I could not avoid that and Car went skidding about 30-40 feet and huge rubber smoke came out, a proper tyre burnout, I enjoyed the smoke for a moment. Thank god car just stopped before the broken road. I started my drive again and car started wobbling like wheel balancing and alignment is gone, but if that is the case then car would wobble at high speed and not at low speed. Initially I though one of tyre is flat, so I stopped and checked the tyres but there was no sign all tyres were properly inflated. Next day morning I check the tyres again and I found that the front 2 tyre has flat surface, all the tyre design and side wall is just washed out during the hard breaking. Please see the following paintbush image for more clarity. Service advisor says he has not seen this happening before in any of the car. And both tyres are now useless. What should I do now? Can claim this with Goodyear? Will they replace the tyres? Can one hard breaking cost you life of 2 tyres?

Please advice.

You've badly flatspotted the front two tyres, which have borne the brunt of the braking. Flatspotting occurs when a tyre locks up under braking and basically skids along without rotating along the road surface. As you can imagine, this scrapes tread and rubber off the contact patch.

It's not an uncommon occurrence, but it's difficult to comment on whether this should have happened or not... depends on the car, the condition of your suspension, the surface of the road.... lots of factors.

Bottom line is that you need to change the two front tyres. I'm not sure Goodyear will honour your claim under the warranty. There are couple of threads in the 'Tyre, Alloy and Wheel Section' that talk about forum members' experiences with trying to claim replacement tyres under warranty. I'd suggest you go through those threads and then do what they suggest.

Tires are made up of multiple rubber plys and delamination can occur if the bonding between the plys is not adequate. This can vary from one tire to another so extreme braking might have different effects on different tires.

If I was you I would keep the claim extremely technical so that the manufacturer does not get away with vague statements.

I think you should definitely make a claim if you were driving below the rated speed of the tire.

I too saw same thing in my Innova GT3 tyre, when my driver did hard braking for silly reason (he missed left turn near my relative house by the time that left road came he did hard braking)

I feel tyre is too soft and comes with cheap material not suitable for indian road condition.

I suggest you better do tyre upgrade or find suitable single replacement tyre in used car market, thats what I did.

Regards,

Ravi.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sukiwa (Post 1038409)

Does your optra have ABS or not? What kind of tarmac of the road and which road did this happen on?

No, my car doesnt have ABS and that why wheels got locked during breaking. The road was newlly constructed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghostrider (Post 1038432)

It's not an uncommon occurrence, but it's difficult to comment on whether this should have happened or not... depends on the car, the condition of your suspension, the surface of the road.... lots of factors.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rudra Sen (Post 1038434)

It could be from a defective lot. And no, you can't claim after 15k of driving. They'll simply ignore your points. Go for better tyres and take our in-house tyrewallah's advice. For Magnum you need better footwear.

1k doesnt make any difference, it happened when at 14k to be more precise, i have driven the car about 1k after that, will they entertain me?

Just launched the complaint with Goodyear on their hotline number, person taking down the complaint was not able to understand the issue, i did not bother to explain him again, he has provided my authorized dealers address and asked me to visit them. Lets see what happens

Quote:

Originally Posted by throttleking (Post 1038553)

I understand this, considering all the responsible factors, tyre getting flatspotted in one hard breaking is not really justified. when you drive on highway there are multiple instances when you need do hard breaking, and i did that several time on all my bikes and cars but this has never happened. I had Goodyear Eagle F1 in my Ikon and they worn out early, puncture and tyre bust was more often. I question the quality of Goodyear tyres. One hard breaking should not cost you 9 thousand rupees, otherwise everytime you return from long trip and its time change the shoes :(

1k doesnt make any difference, it happened when at 14k to be more precise, i have driven the car about 1k after that, will they entertain me?

Just launched the complaint with Goodyear on their hotline number, person taking down the complaint was not able to understand the issue, i did not bother to explain him again, he has provided my authorized dealers address and asked me to visit them. Lets see what happens

I agree with you. I wasn't suggesting that its justified, just that there are lots of factors that may have led to the increased flatspotting you've experienced. Soft rubber is one such reason. Some tyres are made from softer rubber compounds than others, but I don't think that applies to the G3s.

In any case, you're right. All things being equal (even though they often aren't) one hard braking from 100km/h shouldn't have flatspotted the tyres this badly.

You've driven for another 1,000 km on these flatspotted tyres? How's the ride? If it's bad, you're wearing out your suspension and brakes by driving on badly flaptspotted fronts.

Best of luck in your efforts to get compensation from BS for the two tyres. Slim shot, but I guess it's worth taking.

One hard braking should never cost you the life of any tyre irrespective of the brand.

It's just could be possible that these tyres either worn out rather quickly ( which you may have not noticed and think it suddenly became bald) and due to which this happened or their faultiness came to light after 15k kms meaning some manafacturing defect which curbed its life to these many kms, i could be totally wrong.

In either case, tyre manafacturers will never agree its the tyres fault after using it for 15K. Unfortunately, i think the new tyres will have to come from your pocket.

you can try with the dealer if they can do something for you
Also check the tyre date for manufature.If they are pretty old you have a upper edge.
Also check with local tyre shops as they do change them with new one and good discounts as they have means to get them claimed from the company if they are not very old as you said it is just 11 months old.

Thanks to your stars that you end up with tyres not with bonnet etc

I don't think Goodyear will honour the claim but best of luck!
Some thoughts:

1. Was the newly-laid road surface concrete? New concrete roads can be brutal to car tyres. I used to be a regular between Mumbai & Pune when the Expressway opened and noticed tremendous wear on my then Indica 2000's tyres. 30/40 feet of lock-up can easily shred a tyre on concrete than on macadam/tarmac roads!

2. Was the car fully loaded and are your rear brakes working optimally? This could be a reason why your Magnum (with the heavier diesel engine) 'nosedived' and temporarily significantly increased the load on the locked front tyres.

100+kmph, front wheel locking & a good 30-40 feet skidding, any will tire burn out. the more softer rubber gives a more tight grip on any given surface condition.

I am sure the surface was more than normally abrasive too, i guess you cannot claim warranty on your tires as it is result of hard braking.

Dont buy replacement tires with hard compound, you will loose the grip. The OE tires for powerfull cars are wider & softer to have more grip.

Next time drive carefully, thank to your stars that only tires got damaged which are replaceable. Dont worry mate get them replaced, i know it feels bad, but other side is you are safe & sound.tires did their job before having bald spot.