Driving on a lovely 100kph country road with all the brothers in the car... 7 yr old up to 24yr old... we're all there.
Nuffin but sugar cane on both sides... out comes a corner, half way through BANG! WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK!
WTF!
Rear end flew out, quickly down shifted and drifted it out/corrected and slowed her up and pulled over. Hazard lights on.
half the whole rear left tyre tread had pealed itself off, slapping in the wheel well, smashing up some of the plastic under cover and wearing the brake line to the braiding (didn't break it... thankfully).
The steal braiding of the tyre was all ripped up and it pealed through it.
HOW the hell does it do that? It wasn't a retread. It was old, as it was a spare after a punture 4 weeks ago, (yea we been slack)...
Is this normal?
When tyres get old... what is often the 'failure' process...?
We had no choice but to have a laugh about it, thankfully it wasn't on a busy M1. Made the day more interesting none the less...
We did about 5 days prior cause we noticed the front tyres were looking a little saggy. And that was when we still had the spare on cause we didn't swap back over after getting the punture repaired on the original tyre. (too lazy)
My elder bro's first thought was that i over inflated, I didn't have any specs with me so just went 65psi in front, 60 in rear. My tyres on my other car have a max psi of 200 so figured it should be adequate.
ah well... it was underinflated for a couple days prior to us hitting the servo mind you, so u would be on the money.
the only time i've ever had pressures that high was when i had a navara with an excel body on the back which was 750kg on its own and had 500kg of tools in it and they were light duty truck tyres
most family sized cars dont need anything over 40psi
blow outs are a fact of life with tyres that are getting abit of age, thats why they try to encourage people not to drive on tyres that are more than 10 years old cos they start to perish and next thing get hot and blow out like you expierenced
caravans and trailers are shocking for it, cos they never wear tyres out
68AutoBugBeetle Restorer - Experience over 138\% - YIKES --
bajachris88 wrote:Driving on a lovely 100kph country road with all the brothers in the car... 7 yr old up to 24yr old... we're all there.
Nuffin but sugar cane on both sides... out comes a corner, half way through BANG! WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK!
WTF!
Rear end flew out, quickly down shifted and drifted it out/corrected and slowed her up and pulled over. Hazard lights on.
half the whole rear left tyre tread had pealed itself off, slapping in the wheel well, smashing up some of the plastic under cover and wearing the brake line to the braiding (didn't break it... thankfully).
The steal braiding of the tyre was all ripped up and it pealed through it.
HOW the hell does it do that? It wasn't a retread. It was old, as it was a spare after a punture 4 weeks ago, (yea we been slack)...
Is this normal?
When tyres get old... what is often the 'failure' process...?
We had no choice but to have a laugh about it, thankfully it wasn't on a busy M1. Made the day more interesting none the less...
This DOES NOT Happen usually ....
but an old tyre... running MORE than 30 PSI....
means danger....
You may have contributed to the blowout with the EXTREME PRESSURE.... 60 PSI !!!!!
PLUS it was a very OLD tyre....
if tyres have cracks in them... around the sidewall....
chuck them away....
even though You could get a lot of wear out of them at 30
PSI...
its not worth the trouble.... if they blow... and self destruct
cheers
LEE
- Helping keep Air Cooled VWs on the road - location: SCONE in the Upper Hunter Valley - Northern NSW 320 kms NNW of SYDNEY---
68AutoBugBeetle Restorer - Experience over 138\% - YIKES --
haha, well! there we go :P. I think it was 60 psi... i don't remember. Made it corner better none the less 🙂, the tyres haven't got a dome over the top of em like 'over inflated' kinda look.
Will have to double check ASAP then, but it certainly wouldn't help my cause hey? lol.
68AutoBug wrote:in a beetle 20 PSI Max front and 30 PSI Max rear...
18 and 28 recommended by VW...
cheers
LEE
Thats rubbish. 20PSI front? You're dreaming.
NO he's not dreaming.....thats factory specs.
Factory specs for the original pre-cross ply radials of todays tyres. I run the Michelin 165/15 tyres and have been advised by the guys that fit the tyres that the fronts should be 30psi and the rears 32psi due to the structure of the tyres.
If it ain't broke, fix it till it is!
Craig Torrens6 times Australian, 7 times State Hillclimb Class Champion
My 76 model has the same specs, and that is for radials, remember a beetle only weighs 800 odd Kg and is light in the front compared to 'modern cars'..................I'm not saying its ideal, just confirming that Lee is not "dream'n" !
68AutoBugBeetle Restorer - Experience over 138\% - YIKES --
bajachris88 wrote:haha, well! there we go :P. I think it was 60 psi... i don't remember. Made it corner better none the less 🙂, the tyres haven't got a dome over the top of em like 'over inflated' kinda look.
Will have to double check ASAP then, but it certainly wouldn't help my cause hey? lol.
Steel belted radials don't show their Over pressure same as their under pressure...
Not like the old crossply tyres....
60 PSI and they would be rounded on top...
the steel belting stops that from happening......
LEE
PS: the F/R pressures are different because of the weight
differences...
many cars show - increase by 4 psi for fully loaded... etc..
and a Kombi probably more??
- Helping keep Air Cooled VWs on the road - location: SCONE in the Upper Hunter Valley - Northern NSW 320 kms NNW of SYDNEY---
Thanx 11cab, i will have to take a peak. on my ol' bomb (toyota) its in the glove box, it wasn't in my bros (the one that blew up) so it must be in the fuel cap then.
if not will google. i will check the tyre pressures tomorrow when the brother's at work and will reduce them, so he doesn't send me the bill by piecing together my contributions to the failure lol. It was an old tyre anyways...
But all we could do was laugh (once we pulled over). These 'side of the road' catastrophic failure situations are kinda getting old now, this stuff keeps happening to me!
The problem with the factory recommended pressures is that they do it for comfortable ride and not tyre wear. We run 32PSI all round on ours and they handle fine with nice steering weight and a comfortable ride as well.
hate to say it but that looks like a remould (not a retread)
anyone who's running more than 20-21psi in the front of a bug clearly knows nothing about tyre pressures, weight distribution etc of a rear engined car
doesnt matter whether they're 14" pizza cutters or 18" fanbelts pressure is pressure and they need it around that value for correct steering/handling characteristics
About the only exception is offroading tyres but they're not gonna handle nice no matter what you put in them
Joel wrote:anyone who's running more than 20-21psi in the front of a bug clearly knows nothing about tyre pressures, weight distribution etc of a rear engined car
doesnt matter whether they're 14" pizza cutters or 18" fanbelts pressure is pressure and they need it around that value for correct steering/handling characteristics
About the only exception is offroading tyres but they're not gonna handle nice no matter what you put in them
Couldn't agree more.
Right on again Joel 👍
Matt Berry Motorsports...air cooled advice, repairs and mods Ph 0408 704 662
OFF-ROAD,CIRCUIT,DRAG,STREET,ENDURANCE
