Strange Tire Phenomenon

[Jeffrey]

I ran over a log with root burls exposed and one slammed against my tire at the wheel edge. It seemed to be fine, but developed a slow leak and upon close inspection, there was a bit of debris between the tire bead and wheel. When my local tire guy dismounted the tire for inspection, we noticed another issue. The rubber of the actual sealing surface that makes the seal with the wheel was shredding a bit and some had been worn off enough to clearly show the steel belts on the sealing area. Neither of us had ever seen this before and didn't know what to make of it. He thought the rubber was giving up due to heat that is generated by lower pressure offroad driving. I couldn't argue, but I've never monitored my tire temperatures. And, I have never seen this on these BFG's, the same tire I've been using on my 4by's for thirty years. So, we wiped off the thin pieces of loose rubber, slobbered a bunch of seal solution on there, and re-mounted the tire. Seems good so far.

Do you think heat from driving can actually start to disintegrate a tire? My van is just one year old with almost 12K miles.

[jage]

I used get bark and stick pieces shoved in the bead of my XJ causing slow leaks. I eventually went to bead locks, but the bead was never damaged (just annoying to clean).

The only direct cause I can think of would be airing down and having the bead slip around the rim, thus tearing it up. I can't imagine this happening very much without popping a bead (the usual result of too low pressure) but these vans are 3x as heavy as anything I've dealt with.

My personal feeling is that tires (BFG specifically) have been getting cheaper as the years go by. You might have a genuine tire defect on your hands seeing as how your tire guy has never seen it. Replacement while it's a defect as opposed to after a failure would probably be a good avenue.

[Ford_6L_E350]

When you air down for off-road, your speeds are quite low and unlikely to generate significant heat.

Now, if you drive at speeds above 30 mph with low tire pressures, you can generate alot of heat. But, the heat will be in the tread and sidewall - not the bead. There is no flexing in the bead area and it is cooled by the wheel.

Probably you had damage caused by either the wood or by the person who originally installed the tire.

Mike

[patrick51]

My strange one was at the first tire rotation. A hard pull to the right, the shop thinks it justa "radial", issue and will swap the front tires and see where the pull occurs if it does.

[Greg In Austin]

What pattern was used for the rotation?

A lot of places try to just rotate front to back now, and don't change sides. This is an effort to let the belts "set up" for one side. Evidently if the set up for one side and then are rotated to the other side, you can get pulling as the belt fights the road and the vehicle.