Tire blowouts happen when a big failure somewhere on your tire forces the air inside to escape forcefully. This forceful escape causes a fast deflation and could even lead to an explosion.
However, as tire technology gets better (especially after switching from tubed to tubeless tires), blowouts are getting less common. Most modern, high-quality tires will almost always get a slow leaking puncture and rarely blowout.
Nonetheless, your tires can still blow out if they are ancient, of poor quality, or badly used.
What Causes Tire Blowouts?
A couple of things could make a tire blowout. It would be a combination of two or more factors that take down your tires in the worst cases. The most causes for blowouts include:
Impact Damage When Driving on Uneven Surfaces
Even though your tires are designed to take a beating from the road, they still get damaged when you drive over potholes, hit stones, or go over curbs as you park.
If you frequent roads with potholes, chances are you are straining your tires a lot. The same applies if you are off-road a lot.
By chance, you could hit a pothole, a curb, or a stone at the right angle to pierce your tire. This damage could cause a primary weak point leading to a blowout. If it doesn’t, the tire will be compromised and more susceptible to a blowout if one of the other factors holds.
High-Temperature Seasons
Heat makes tires more susceptible to blowouts. It is so noticeable to the extent that people jokingly call their hot seasons Tire Blowout Season. In most parts of the US, it runs between mid-May to early October.
While higher temperatures could push a fully inflated tire past the car’s recommended PSI, overinflation rarely causes blowouts. It’s the behavioral changes that come with hot weather that pushes tires to the limits.
In summer, people travel more. They drive further and load their cars more as they head to a holiday destination. Moreover, since the roads are dry, they tend to average higher speeds on the freeway.
Combine these tire mistreatments, and the possibility of your tires sitting at a higher PSI due to the heat makes it easier for old or compromised tires to blow out.
Overloading Your Car
Every car has a limit to how much it can carry – and so do tires. In most cases, tires have a higher weight rating than the car. However, the max load rating on a tire only applies when the tire is inflated to its maximum allowed PSI.
Since we use our car’s recommendation when inflating tires, the maximum weight rating on the tire becomes irrelevant. You have to stick to the payload your car or truck can take.
Don’t keep adding stuff to your truck’s bed just because they can fit. Be keen and load your vehicle close to but never past the maximum weight target.
Moreover, remember to account for all the car’s occupants when loading.
For instance, if your car maxes out at 900 pounds, here is a breakdown of how to load it.
Four people with an average weight of 135 pounds
135 x 4 = 540 pounds
This leaves you with just 360 pounds of cargo.
Your boot might have space for more cargo, but it doesn’t mean you should stuff all your holiday cargo in there. Your absolute limit is 360 pounds. I would do 300 pounds to be safe.
While overinflating your tires could increase their weight-bearing capacity, your car’s suspension, engine, and transmission won’t be happy with the extra load.
Take Away: Don’t overload.
Underinflating Tires
Underinflating your tires could be the fastest and easiest way to wear out your tires. A tire needs the correct pressure for the expected weight of the car. Without the correct pressure, the tire’s structure won’t have the support it needs to operate.
The tire flexes more and puts extra strain on its rubber, steel, fabric, and composite material. If this happens for long, the steel belts will snap, and other rubber components won’t have the structural rigidity they need to keep the tire intact.
The result is a blowout. This happens faster if you are driving at highway speeds.
Airing down to get a better grip offroad is standard practice. This shouldn’t be a problem, especially if you air down off-road tires and drive slowly on unpaved surfaces.
Problems kick in when you forget or fail to air back up once you hit the pavement. Driving at highway speeds on the pavement with aired-down tires not only dips fuel efficiency but also wears down your tires faster.
If this happens for long enough, it could lead to a blowout.
You can check out a post we did on monitoring and managing tire pressure to find out how often you should check and reinflate your tires.
A Couple of Punctures on the Tire
Tires are designed to take a couple of punctures without breaking down. Nonetheless, there is a limit.
When Can a Tire Be Repaired?
Any time you get a puncture, your first thought is if you can repair it. If you don’t have money for a new tire, you could be tempted to push it far by patching up more often. Here are some pointers on repairing your tires.
How Many Punctures Per Tire?
There is a limit to how many tires you can repair per tire. This limit is imposed by how close the puncture is to another on the tire; Manufacturers recommend repairing punctures that are more than 16 inches apart.
IF they are closer than this, chances are your tire’s internal structure is compromised. The supporting bands and fiber might be too torn.
Since keeping track of old punctures is hard, splitting your tire’s diameter into 16-inch sections lets you know how many punctures you can theoretically repair in a tire.
The Position of the Punctures
Tire repair kits work by binding onto the ‘meat’ and fiber on the tire to create a strong bond. The more the surface they can adhere to, the better. This is why punctures on the tread section of a tire are an easy fix.
Any puncture on the shoulder or sidewall of the tire is a different case. While these parts of the tire endure tremendous strain, they don’t have the density needed to hold onto a patch.
Replace your tire if you have a puncture at these positions. Repairing it is setting yourself up for a future blowout.
The Size of the Punctures
A nail or any sharp object puncture at the tread of your tire is easy to repair work. However, any gash or hole larger than 1/4 of an inch in diameter won’t patch well.
This is too big for the plug to keep closed. Moreover, there is a higher chance that the puncture cut through some of the reinforcing thread in the tire, rendering that part weaker than the rest.
Over time, the plug will either wiggle loose, making the tire repeatedly leak through that point.
Bad Quality Tires
Not all tires are made the same. Low-quality tires have less reinforcement and low-quality rubber.
Most people buy them because they are cheap. However, they are more susceptible to damage and have a shorter lifespan. They could get punctures faster and even suffer from blowouts when you least expect them.
Driving on Old Tires
The last most common cause of tire blowouts is driving on old tires. Old tires have less tread and are more susceptible to punctures.
Moreover, since they’ve been through so much flexing and probably a couple of punctures, they are more compromised than still in service tires.
Remember, tires also age even when not in use. Driving a tire that was manufactured over six years ago could also put you at risk.
How Do You Fix a Tire Blowout?
Knowing how to deal with a blowout could save your life. Even though repairing a tire after a blowout is impossible, you still have to steer your car to a safe stop after the blowout.
Pro Tip: If you feel your car keeling over to one side or sort of slipping and sliding with every turn, don’t ignore and keep driving. These are cues to a slow puncture. Get to a safe spot and change to a spare tire or get assistance.
Here is what you should do during and after a tire blowout.
- Do not panic. Remain in control
- Hold your steering wheel firmly with two hands.
- Tap your accelerator pedal gently to maintain speed since a blowout drastically slows down the car
- Do not brake. This will make you lose control faster
- Lift your foot off the brake pedal so that it gradually reduces speed
- Do not yank your wheel in any direction. You can gently counter-steer to keep your direction relatively straight but don’t entirely resist the car tending towards the punctured side – especially if there’s no traffic on that side
- Once the vehicle has slowed down considerably, steer it out of the road
- Brake gently and bring it to a stop
- Turn on your hazards (emergency flashers), place some lifesavers, and wait for assistance.
- If you are at a safe place and have a spare tire, you could consider slapping it on.
Even with this guide, surviving a blowout is easier said than done. The pop, noise of air rushing out, and a suddenly hard to control car needs a cool head to take in.
Check this too: How Often Should You Change Your Tires?
Avoid the urge to slam on the brakes. Moreover, your car will firmly pull to one side. Resist the urge to counter-steer. Most rollovers from a tire blowout happen when you overcorrect. Instead, hold the steering wheel firm to keep the car from steering itself and only counter steer gently once you’ve taken stock of the sideways pull.
Keeping all your hands on the steering wheel and the correct position and staying alert will come in handy in case of a blowout.