Team-BHP - Bent Rim after hitting a pothole - What effect will it have on the tyre?

My car hit a pothole yesterday in the Mysore-Hiriyur stretch while I was driving from Calicut to Pune.

It was a tree-lined road and this was a really nasty pothole perhaps slightly larger than the diameter of the tyre, and with quite firm and sharp-ish edges. Somewhat deep too. The pothole was nicely camouflaged in the on-and-off shadows that the leaves laid out on the road, and I didn't have any time to react after seeing the pothole.

Jumped into it straight, and the tyres started losing air straightaway. Stopped the car immediately ( must have driven some 20-odd meters to stop and pull over ) , and found that the driver side rim was bent and the tyre was flat ( air escaped through the bent part ).

We managed to change the tyre and continue the journey, and today I went to our trusted wheel alignment/tyre shop ( Darshan Tyres on Nagar road ) to fix the rim.

They fixed the rim quickly, and since the spare one was an old tyre, exchanged the rim with that of the spare and re-fitted the front tyre with the rim from the spare tyre. The chief mechanic there said that the rim was fine, but he just switched it from the spare to have the perfect rim for the front wheel.

I couldn't continue to use the spare tyre for longer term use as: a) it was considerably older and b) it was of a slightly different width - 175 ipo 185. Thats the reason we fitted the original front tyre back.

I was however a bit skeptical about the condition of my tyre after such a catastrophic fall into a pothole- he did a thorough inspection of the tyre and told me not to worry, and that the tyre is absolutely fine.

Any thoughts from the experts on the forum? is it ok to continue with such a tyre especially on the front wheel?

(the pic was taken immediately after the tyre was taken out, hence one part looks flat. Visually the tyre looks absolutely fine now.)

Thanks in advance for the responses!

A visual inspection may not be enough to reveal structural damage to the tire's construction. There's very little probability a rim-bending impact would've left the tire completely unharmed, even if it appears so.

Best if you at least move this tire to spare and get a new one for day-to-day running. Given it's one of the driven/steered wheels, it's even more imperative not to take a chance and risk an incident where you potentially lose steering input in a tight situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigzero (Post 3621674)

(the pic was taken immediately after the tyre was taken out, hence one part looks flat. Visually the tyre looks absolutely fine !

let me break the bad news to you. Your side wall has taken the stress, if you see there's a thick 1-2 cm line around the tyre, this happens when you run on a flat. If the mechanic said its fine then must be fine, but the image tells a different story.

Pramod

Hmm thanks folks... Yes I did run a (very) short distance on flat as I had to move away from the road to a place where I could change the tyre.

Overall it doesn't look good I think, from the feedback.. Does it make sense to change two front tyres together and retain the rear tyres? Or is it ok to run with just one fresh front tyre? wont it somehow create some sort of an imbalance?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigzero (Post 3621725)

Put the spare wheel in place of this tyre and buy a new one and put in the spare wheel place.

Ditto experience with my Innova's front tyre, Yokohama C-Drive. I exchanged the rim but the tyre still lives on after 3 years and Ladakh drive.

From outside there does not seem to be any adverse impact on the tyre wall in the high resolution image.

If there was immediate damage to the tyre, you should have seen by now
1. some cracking in fibers from inside of tyre when it was checked and refitted at workshop
2. sidewall bulge starting to grow at the spot it was bumped in, this may also imply some crack started developing from inside
3. some linear crack developing on the sidewall visible exterior at the place of impact, if the tyre was so impacted.

If nothing, I think there is no need to worry. But would still ask you to get it rechecked.

The tyre must have had decent pressure at the time of impact and lost pressure only after impact creating the gap in the rim, that is why it must have still held up well. Had it been much low on pressure, it would have given up.

If unsure, get it once again checked from inside and outside for any visible damage, water test etc and then only decide upon changing over. Otherwise, the tyre looks decently usable. Additionally, Turanza ER60 are pretty tough tyres and I doubt if the tyre is done with so easily.

If you must replace, replace 2 new tyres for front wheels to keep in sync and balance, and keep the other front tyre for spare.

Well, its not always necessary that when the rim gets bent, the tyre is finished too. Different components take different impacts.

I had my strut bent twice in my Swift, once the left, once the right. Both the times, the alloy as well as the soft Michelin Xm2's had absolutely no damage.

If your tyre looks fine, runs fine, it is fine.

Take it out on an empty road at a little higher speeds and check if there is any wobbling, if not, its good to go.

My next highway trip is not going to some in some time, and I think I will get some time driving around the city to see how the tyre is holding up. I will anyway be replacing the tyre, perhaps not immediately. I will wait for a few days before taking the final call.

The tyre shop had inspected the internal part of the tyre.

I can see some scuffing on the sidewall, and I think that is where cracks should come up. Will do physical checks for a few days and see.

In any case I believe there will be some risk, however small, to maintain 100+ kph on expressways.... I will rather be on a perfect set of tyres for such trips.

Thanks once again for the inputs.

I'm actually going to go with Parsh & Humyum on this one.

A sidewall would *probably* show cracking or a sidewall bubble if it was damaged. In this case it doesn't sound like it is.
If you want to be sure, have another tyre guy examine it.

That said, it's good to hear you plan to replace the tyres soon anyway. It's not worth risking a lot more vs. just bringing forward an inevitable tyre replacement by a few months.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pramodkumar (Post 3621707)

....if you see there's a thick 1-2 cm line around the tyre, this happens when you run on a flat.

This is true, but even just a few meters of running flat on a dusty road could make it look like that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glenmz (Post 3621709)

I am not an expert with tyres. But you may want to move the tyre to rear.

Do read this thread : http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-a...ront-rear.html

cya
R

Suffered similar impact and exactly similar looking rim bent about a month back. Got the rim straightened, did visual inspection of the tyre while refitting and have continued to use the same. So far no issues. The guy who did the rim straightening also did not say that I should not use the tyre and get a new one immediately.

So I think it depends on you whether you want use or change. No definitive answer.

Same thing happened to my Car sometime back. The car was running at around 80 kmph when it hit a pothole. Immediately nothing happened, but after about 50 kms or so when we stopped the car for a while, I could notice that the air had gone out of the tyre. Initially I thought it was a puncture. But later when I checked with the service centre guys, I got to understand that the rim is bent, so the air has released out of the tyre because it was a tube less tyre.

Later I had to rectify the bend on the rim. However nothing happened to the tyre.