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Hey guys... how you been.. long time no post i know but i've been busy as hell... Anyway so i go outside today to wash my car and i get to the part where i dress my tires. I notice a HUGE crack n the side wall of both my front tires... and when i say hug i mean grand canyon huge... The crack runs roughly 60% of the face of the tire and its larger in some places then in other...

I'm pissed.. like really pissed... uber pissed actually... There Pirelli 215 45 17's there 3 years old and have about 18,000km on them there only use din the summer alway properly inflated ( i check at least once a month)

Now heres the big problem.. These tires are discontinued.. (f***ing great right) and my rears are fine.. So i gotta get a new set of tires.. (yeah i could roll with 2 different kind but no i dont like doing s*** like that)

1) So now i need suggestion on what kind of tire to buy.. There only used in the summer so i would like something uni directional highperformance-ish

2) What do you think could have caused such a big crack.. i try to avoid huge potholes and i havn't ever really hit a BIG one.. I mean i do corner fast sometimes but there a ZR rated tire so they should be up to the job of taking it and i never EVER do burn outs with my car so what could i be..

3) On tuesday i'm gonna change them onver and put my winter ones back on.. do you think it would be safe to drive on them (school monday) or should i play it safe and take my moms car ??


To be honest with you guys im extremely dissapointed with pirelli... I paid 175 -180 a tire and they dont last more then 18'00 km i mean there 90% tread life but a huge ass crack in the sidewall..

I guess the f*** you up fairy decided to visit me last night...

Edit i went out and took some pics..

Sidewalls can crack for a variety of reasons, but in your case the only thing I can think of is that maybe there was an issue with how and where your storing the tires and / or a latent defect in them (though 2 out of 4 going bad is really odd :huh:)

NefCanuck

Sadly it's not how you store them or how you take care of them. The answer is the tire shine. oils soak into the rubber and they adventually look like that. There 3 years and z rated too, so the rubber is soft and able to soak in and absorb the oils then they will separate. If your looking for a nice cheap tire go with the General Exclaim UHP. They're a W rated tire so it'll handle better than your Z rated ones because W is a higher rating, Y is the highest.
http://www.megawheelz.com they do great stuff.

Yeah i store them in my house.. were its warm and not humid...

I dunno about the tire shine theory but it does seem viable... the only thing it i don't really use shine its more armor all so there not uber shiny and greasy but i can see it happening... BUt still if it were the tire shine wouldnt it happen to all 4 ?? i mean the rears are like new no cracks at all.. none not even small ones..

I was thinking BF Goodrich or Michellen or Dunlop... not to sure yet..

do you store them on cement?

Were they under inflated at anytime? To me it looks like under inflated tires. Also front of the car is lot heavier then the back bc of the engine and stuff, so maybe thats why you got the fronts cracked and not the back ones.

No never under inflated.. i check them at leas once a month and they never lost air either. tHey are at a constant 29psi... The reason they seem low is because there now leaking last i check they were at 23psi... i'm suspecting they'll be flat soon...

Yeah i bought these michellen tire caddies where i store them i store them standing on a sheet of plywood up in my basement..

I dont know its really really odd... My front tires used to at the back and i just rotated them in April..

The really wierd thing is that last weekend when i went to go clean my car they were fine...

And throughout the week i always took the same way to school and there are not big or threataning pot hole.. So something isnt right..

So basically i went from having 4 perfect tires with 18,000 Km to 2 really cracked up f***ed up tires... I mean i hate to be the conspiracy theorist but do you think that some one could have done this ??

look at the 2nd and 3rd picture awfuly thin and straight for a crack kind of looks like some one took a box cutter to them... And as for the big chunks i dunno maybe they started digging into them...

I mean its either Harry Potter is pissed at me and cursed them with magic.. Or there defective(I checked the DOT numbers they were made within a week of each other).. or someone slashed them...

The second you typed Armor All, bam! thats it right there. Armor All is the worst to put on your tires seriously. Michelin came into the tire shop and gave us a little talk about customers that put those products on the tires and told us all about the damage it does. Armor All also dries up dashes and door panels. You want something that has a high silicone level in the dressings, not a liquid. Liquid soaks into the matteria while the silicone will mostly sit on top.

Scorcher000,Sep 29 2008, 08:53 AM Wrote:The second you typed Armor All, bam! thats it right there. Armor All is the worst to put on your tires seriously. Michelin came into the tire shop and gave us a little talk about customers that put those products on the tires and told us all about the damage it does. Armor All also dries up dashes and door panels. You want something that has a high silicone level in the dressings, not a liquid. Liquid soaks into the matteria while the silicone will mostly sit on top.
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dang i just put Armor All product all over my dashes and panels last night!


How about Mother's for tire shine? any bad? cause thats what i've been using

I'm not too sure about other stuff. I've know about this amor all thing for a few years and its something to do with the cemical they use in it. search it up if you want. I use Meguiar's tire shine on my stuff, it has alot more silicone in it.

What ever the problem put on your winters and the bad pair back to where ever you bought them and show them and see what they say.

Scorcher000,Sep 29 2008, 09:25 AM Wrote:I'm not too sure about other stuff. I've know about this amor all thing for a few years and its something to do with the cemical they use in it. search it up if you want. I use Meguiar's tire shine on my stuff, it has alot more silicone in it.
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ok never mind thats the stuff i use,,,,Meguiar's

Scorcher000,Sep 29 2008, 09:53 AM Wrote:The second you typed Armor All, bam! thats it right there. Armor All is the worst to put on your tires seriously. Michelin came into the tire shop and gave us a little talk about customers that put those products on the tires and told us all about the damage it does. Armor All also dries up dashes and door panels. You want something that has a high silicone level in the dressings, not a liquid. Liquid soaks into the matteria while the silicone will mostly sit on top.
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Armor All the tire foam you mean ?? If so that sucks, i've been using that for awhile they bought that cheap brand at Wal-Mart. Works just as good.

Please let me know. Thanks

I guess the squirt (liquid) Foam might too I never use that stuff so, don't know. It's all pretty much the same stuff.

The only time I've seen tires go like that were a set of Dunlop's my dad had on his '66 Mustang. Summer only, had only about 20,000 kms on them before the all cracked like that. I think it has to do with the amount of sitting the soft compound does. Could be dry rot I guess...

Never saw that happen to a BFG/Michelin though.

Ryan

Yeah i doubt its the tire shine.. i have 4 tires and i put tire shine on all for of them.. and i use poor boys tire shine it looks like armor all but i called up my distributor and they said its not... if it was the tire shine it would have been on all 4.. Plus my dad has the exact same tires as me on his car and has had them for longer and uses the same stuff and no cracks..

I took them off and the tires are defective... the rubber has become so soft/brittle i can peel chunks of it off with my hands.. both on the side wall and on the actuall tread... (and i dont put tire shine on my tread) and yet the rears are in perfect condition...

Sry but that just means the rubber was contaminated and separated the inner and outer layers. Meaning something container cemicals or oils soaked into the tries and spread. Take a tour in a Retreading factory when you have a chance, you'll see my point. Oh well just glad it didn't happen to you when your on the highway doing 120.