Almost had a tire blow on me yesterday. The van had been pulling further and further to the right the prior day. Yesterday morning, as I got off the interstate, it was thumping rather loud and pulling hard - even at low speeds. I pulled over in an empty parking lot to check it out. Both tires looked fine and I was just thinking maybe it was totally out of alignment somehow. Just as I got ready to get back in the van, I saw this shadow coming from the inside passenger front tire. I thought some child’s toy ball had rolled up against my tire - which was really weird since the parking lot was empty and I was almost sure there was nothing around when I parked.

When I saw what it really was, I could hardly believe it. Thirty seconds after I took these pictures, it popped with a boom. I was just parked. Now, here comes the weird part: the tire didn’t deflate. It was like a teenager popping a zit. Of course, his whole head isn’t going to deflate, right? Thankfully, a good tire store in town was right around the corner and I dropped it off and had my friend come get me. The tire guy showed me that it actually was leaking now, albeit very slowly. You can see the after shot and see how just the outer layer of protective sidewall blew apart, but the inner tube part only had hairline tears. Rubber. What an amazing compound!

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