Tire worker said “This Tire is Road Worthy with Lots of Tread Life.”
That statement was made on a Tuesday afternoon. Three days later on Friday the tire failed, luckily no one was hurt and no vehicle rollover accident occurred and no personal injury or wrongful lawsuit was necessary. In fact the tire was put on the spare and mounted to the back spare tire holder on the Nissan Pathfinder. All of a sudden on its own, the tire treads failed and the tire exploded in the middle of the night. The 30-35 lbs of pressure used to inflate and mount the tire was all the tire’s treads, belts and core could take before this previously described “road worthy tire” had a massive tread separation failure.
The man asked our law firm to inspect the tire via digital pictures and upon inspection it was easy to understand why the tire failure occurred. Though the tire tread depth was more than sufficient to provide years of use, the age of the tire told another story. The tire date code at the end of the Tire DOT number (453) indicates that this tire was manufactured in the 45th week of either 1993 or possibly even 1983. Since the tire was made prior to 2000, the date code it sometimes difficult to un-code at a glance by the consumer. The history of this tire is not known either. One look at the tire makes us believe it has been stored inside deflated and probably not on a rim for a long period. The reason for that conclusion is the fact that there is not a massive amount of surface cracks around the sidewalls or the edge of the treads. The age of this tire whether 22 years old or 32 years old is the main reason the tire tread failure occurred so suddenly. If this tire had been mounted on the SUV and the young man had driven on it at highways speeds, then a sudden tire tread separation was eminent and a rollover accident might have occurred within miles of the used tire store.
Old Tires Fail More Often for a Reason
Old tires like other products glued together with adhesives fail. The adhesive used on tires after years of age will start to crack and stop adhering and will pull apart or separate. When this happens, especially with the addition 30-40psi of inflation and weight of a vehicle, the treads and plies start to loosen and fail. Tires even 6-8 year old tires can start to fail if they has been stored in hot warehouses for many years before put into service or have been on a vehicle for years in the sun with the heat and cold taking their punishment on them. Then more stresses occur when an old tire in used on a hot highway under load. Tires are not meant to last 10-25 years without failures or still be “good as new” or “road worthy”. Thank goodness this worn out tire was put on the spare and not on the rear of his SUV.
Old Used Tire Tread Failure Lawsuit
If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident or rollover and you believe an old or aged tire may be to blame, then call us and let us help sort out the details for you. While old tires fail more often than new ones, newer 1-6 year old tires can fail too, especially if they were defectively or cheaply manufactured or had been repaired improperly. Call us and talk to a Board Certified Personal Injury Trial Lawyer certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization licensed over 30 years. Attorney David Willis is very experienced in tire defects and in fact was presented a national public service award for his work on making the tire industry change its ways and helping NHTSA to recall millions of tires and SUV’s.