Tire stories? Maybe not as exciting as some of y'all's, but these left an impression.
When I was driving long haul, running for a company that, like most, put recaps on their trailers..regardless of how well you'd check 'em during pretrip, invariably you'd lose a tire on a regular basis. For a company that got a lot of Fedex loads (you'll be on time or you don't get paid by Fedex) you think they'd see the value in spending a little more on tires, but I digress.
I'm somewhere up in the NE on a bright sunny day - on the NJ turnpike. Cruising right along in moderate traffic. A guy pulls up alongside me in an absolutely beautiful C2 Corvette - silver, sidepipes, knockoff wheels or the knockoff style, anyway. Car looked like a show piece restoration down to the repro style tires and all. Made me nervous for him to be so close to the truck, but I couldn't change my position so I carried on and admired his car as much as I safely could while still keeping my eyes on the road. Just as traffic cleared and he pulled ahead, I lost a tire on that side, full separation of the tread and the carcass blew out. His beautiful car missed major damage by a few seconds, and he probably never even knew it.
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Years later when I'm running my GMT400 truck salvage/shop, picking up inventory with a friend and his wrecker, before I had my own shop wrecker. This is post-hurricane Katrina and while generally I avoided buying flood trucks, this one was SUPER cheap and had some parts that would be valuable regardless of water damage. However it was at least 45 mins away so that's an extended tow back to the shop. So we're ALMOST back to the shop, coming up the toll road and maybe a couple exits before mine. The truck gave an odd little wobble on the hook that I felt, and I'm thinking to myself "I wonder if a tire is getting ready to let go" .. moments later, BANG!!! like a shotgun going off. My buddy driving just about jumps out of his skin. I remained calm because I was expecting it. I said, "there goes a tire" .. we approach the toll booth and realize the tire is ON FIRE.
Hustle through the toll booth, pull up into the first driveway which is an abandoned strip center. The shredded tire is burning while my buddy is searching in vain for a fire extinguisher. I'm digging through the wrecker toolboxes and find a long pry bar and I'm out there trying to pry the burning mass away from the wheel, and mostly failing. Unexpectedly, a kid walks up with a bucket of dirty water (turns out they were washing cars on the corner) and hands it to me, I throw it on the fire, which thankfully goes right out. The wheel made a bizarre sound when the water hit it - like a loud SKRONKK!!! noise. I threw the kid whatever loose cash I had in my pocket, thanked him, then we set to lifting the truck from the other end so I could shift it to neutral and get it the rest of the way to the shop.
Once we got there I put a spare from another truck on it.. so here's the truck that survived the burning tire,
And here's the wheel/remains of the tire. My guess on the cause is that the brake was dragging due to collapsed flex hose or caliper seized in the knuckle from flood water corrosion, heating the wheel to the point it browned the clearcoat and finally blew the tire.
Not without precedent...I had another parts truck that started smoking from the wheel on the way back to the shop. Since I was driving the wrecker for this one, I was paying better attention, and caught it before it was an issue. Side cutters to the flex hose got this one the rest of the way without incident, but you can see the beginning of the paint browning on the center of the wheel. A near-miss on a repeat of the other one!
Richard
