Low profile tires and sidewall damage

1943 Views 1 Reply 2 Participants Last post by Robert.Mauro, Oct 1, 2020

MichaelJohn

Discussion Starter · Sep 30, 2020

Whelp, 1500 miles and I drove over a curb on a turn. Curb happened to also have a sewer drain. Took a chunk out of the sidewall, about a third of the way up from the rim. The chunk is smaller than a dime and only a few millimeters, maybe 1/8” deep. There’s no cording exposed, just black. I drive a Touring with the bigger, more low profile wheels. Do I need to replace this brand new tire? Are these tires more or less resistant to catastrophic sidewall failure? Thanks!

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Robert.Mauro

· #2 · Oct 1, 2020

MichaelJohn said:
Whelp, 1500 miles and I drove over a curb on a turn. Curb happened to also have a sewer drain. Took a chunk out of the sidewall, about a third of the way up from the rim. The chunk is smaller than a dime and only a few millimeters, maybe 1/8” deep. There’s no cording exposed, just black. I drive a Touring with the bigger, more low profile wheels. Do I need to replace this brand new tire? Are these tires more or less resistant to catastrophic sidewall failure? Thanks!

I'd consult your local tire shop to do a visual and physical inspection. The strength of the sidewalls is neither the cording, nor the rubber, but instead a combination of the layers of the two being laminated together. It's possible that with the cording delaminated from the rubber, it will start to bulge.

The sidewalls on these tires, like many lightweight street fuel performance tires, is not very thick, so, yes, it's possible you may have a sidewall failure.

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