Coming out of Glacier National Park after 6 nights in the back country, I ruptured a side wall. It is a decently long story, but it revolves around hitting some wicked pavement gaps followed by about 70 miles of the roughest gravel road this side of hell. I made it home safe and sound, but this picture brings a tear to the eye.
There was no damage to the rim at all. Those are 06/07 WRX wheels. they are a 17x7" wheel (clear 4pot/2pot brakes) I have typed up the whole story, however it is over the 10000 character limit so it will come in two portions. Here is the first part: The long story is: I was planning on heading out on a fairly long road trip. During which I did not want to worry about how rain would react to the minimal amount of tread remaining on my RT615s. So I picked up a used set of wheels/tires for this trip that would work out in case of unfavorable weather. (The tires were in great shape when I started the trip. I want to make perfectly clear that this tire failure was a result of the adverse conditions I encountered and that is all.) I swapped over the wheels/tires a few days prior to the trip to make sure that everything was sound. I checked the pressure the night before the trip and inflated the tires to what I normally run. (It was cold when I did this.) I drove out to Rapid City, SD to do some sight seeing in the Rushmore/Badlands region, like a proper tourist. After this I drove up through Wyoming into Montana for a backcountry trip at Glacier. In the high spots between Montana and Wyoming I encountered a fair amount of road construction. Specifically several gaps where the gravel surface would abruptly change to a cement surface 1-2" higher. (It was very hot this day.) After having my teeth jarred several times, I stopped in town for some gas (stupid 91 octane....) and checked oil levels and tires and what not. I noticed that the tires (previously in great condition) now showed signifcant damage. Specifically signs of tread separation, cracks in the sidewalls, lumps, and all the other not so good things. I checked the tire pressure, which was about ~10 psi higher than what I had put in a few days before (I contribute this to the heat difference.) I believe that the increased tire pressure and severe impacts in the road construction areas caused this damage. I made sure that the tires still held air just fine and then continued on. This was on Sunday and there were no tires shops open in the small towns in Montana. Having reached the park, and spent the night there, I had to head up the Inner Fork Road to get to my backpacking location. This has a sign posted saying that it has the lowest posted speed limit in the park specifically for how rough it is. It is a solid 40 miles of hard dirt hills strewn with grapefruit sized rocks. Luckily I made it through relatively unscathed, atleast with respect to the tires. My car now has significantly more dents in the exhaust, floor boards, pinch seams, rear diff protector, and pretty much anything under the car (not the oil pan though).
Part 2: Fast forward 6 days and I hiked out to my car (Started hiking around 5AM reached the car around 11:30 AM) which looks just as I left it. The tires all are holding the same amount of air as when I left them 6 days ago. I am down 1/4 qt of oil, but that was expected. So I packed up and headed out. I decided to try the Outer Fork road this time as it is supposed to be significantly quicker and less rugged. My goal was to one shot the 19 hour/ 1230 mile drive and be home around 9/10am Monday to see off some friends from Europe. I had to first navigate about 15 miles of the rough stuff before I could get to the Outer Fork. Having reach the Outer Fork all was still well. (That is when the attached picture was taken showing the damage (circled) to the tire and where it actually popped (X)) The Outer Fork road is about 40 miles of your standard gravel roads although with very intense wash boarding. I must have made it to the last 10 yrds of the the gravel when the tire gave out. I was being careful to dodge potholes and big rocks which could do extra damage and while in the process of dodging a hole I hit a rock. Thats how I got the flat. The rest is another adventure. Having pulled off and swapped tires around using the screw jack (flat was on the front passenger side, so I put the rear pass tire in the front and the spare on the rear to minimize damage done to the transmission/front diff). From here I decided to head to the nearest town to try and get a new set of tires ASAP. This led me down 22 more miles of gravel road with even more extreme wash boarding. (the Honda Passport in front of me was actually occasionally sliding sideways because of how bad it was). After a while (I stuck to the recommended 50mph top speed on the donut) I reached the town of Columbia Falls, which is has about 3 or 4 different tire shops. Since it is again Sunday they are all closed. The nearest place to get tires on a Sunday is at the Walmart in Kalispell, which is about another 30 miles down the highway. I made my way down there testing the limits of the spare and hitting 60-65 mph (still under the posted speed limit). I found the Walmart to be open, a good start (around 3:00PM). I then proceeded to inquire about what tires they had available in 215/45/17 which is stock for the wheels I am running. They had nothing, so I inquired about some 225/45/17s. (My RT615s are 225/45/17 and fit on a 17x7 rim just fine, so other 225/45/17s should as well, especially since the Falkens normally run a bit wide) They had a total of 4 225/45/17s. 2 were General Evertrek HPs and the other two were Goodyear Eagle GT-HRs (on the clearance rack for $25ea down from ~$160 or so). I made some calls and inquried with knowledgeable people about the potential issues of running tires from 2 different companies. After some research it was discovered that the two tires share: outer diameter (most important), tread depth, and speed rating. My conclusion is that it would be possible to run this proposed configuration as a temporary means to cover the 1200 miles home. Now the fun starts. Walmart has a policy that they cannot put 2 different types of tire on a AWD car. Good for them, they are protecting unknowing customers. Bad for me, in order to work around the policy I have to bring my wheels in one at a time to get the changed out as they cannot just put it on the lift. So out comes the screw jack again. I gave them the wheel w/ the flat tire on it to change out first while I messed with the screw jack and broke loose all my lug nuts. (this is where the picture in the first post was taken). After a great deal of waiting I inquire what is taking so long to get the first tire on. They were short handed to start with but they had all3 guys working on getting one of the Goodyear GT-HRs onto the stock 17x7" wheel I gave them. They just could not get the bead to seat, I dont know why I know that 225s will fit on those wheels; but they just couldnt. In the process of trying over and over again the ruined the tire they were working with. So that would leave me with only 3 new tires and used one which wouldnt fly. At this point I decided to try and patch/plug the flat. They sell all of the stuff to do it right there so I gave it a shot; however the hole in the sidewall proved to be too big and a plug would not work. (now around 5:00pm Sunday) I was referred to Costco which was about 10 miles up the road. So after retightning all my lugs and fighting with the screw jack (never use a screw jack in the snow it will ruin it forever) I made it up there. (5:30pm) The main tire guy at Costco was helpful, however he made it very clear that in that neck of the woods almost no tire place will stock a lower profile performance type tire during the late summer early fall. They were lucky and had a set of 225/45/17s in stock but they were the uber high end Michelin Pilot Sports something or others that cost ~175 ea(costco price) +balancing/valve steam fees. He assured me that he could mount them on a 17x7" wheels but they closed at 6:00pm and I would have to wait until tomorrow. I decided to press on with the spare to get to a larger city where they would be more likely to have a 215/45/17 in stock. So I hopped on highway 2 to East Glacier. After reaching East Glacier, pushing the donut to the 70mph speed limit, I got the bright idea that a Subaru Dealership should have 215/45/17s in stock as it is the stock tire for the 06/07 WRX which were the wheels I am running. Chux was able to help me out and determine that the nearest Subaru dealership was in the town I just left and the next one on the way was in Great Falls (123mi away). He also pointed out that the stock tires they would have would most likely be RE92s which suck monkey nuts and would most likely be horribly expensive for such a bad tire. So I continued on to Great Falls since it was a much larger town than East Glacier. After reaching Great Falls (around 10pm) I started the lookout for a place to stay. There must have been some shindig going on in town or something as places were either full or charging absurd prices for rooms. So I pushed on again to find the next biggest town. Little did I know that hoping on 87 South to 12 West is like of of the most desolate areas out there but contained an extremely dangerous amount of deer. Each town I encountered was smaller than the previous. It actually reached a point where a shed w/ some goats was called a town. At some points I encountered road construction where the road was taken down to the gravel bedding which had me worried about if the spare or other 3 tires would make it. Having topped off on gas in Great Falls and there not being much on the way I was rather nervous by the time I rolled into Forscythe, 298 miles later ( I will point out that this is the best mileage I got on the on the entire trip and it was with the donut while going 60-65mph constantly, comes out to like 32mpgs). The man working the night shift at the gas station informed me that Miles City (45 miles away on I-94) was the next big city and boasted a walmart which may have 24hr tire service as well as many other tire shops which would be opening in a few hours. Onward again. I pulled into the Walmart parking lot at 4:45AM, and having checked the hours the tire service did not open until 7AM. So I a couple hours of sleep and went in at 7. They had a set (only 1 set) of 4 tires in 215/45/17 in stock, so I nabbed them (since I was having all 4 of the same tire put on they would do the work for me) and was out the door and on the road by 8:45AM. I just reached home at about 8:30PM. That is the long story. I hope you enjoyed it, it was a real wild ride for me. I put about 600 miles on my spare tire over the past 48 hours (still looks brand new). Surprisingly I am not hearing death whines from my center diff nor is the transmission acting funny. I would not recommend doing what I did but at least you know it is possible. I <3 that little bridgestone rubberband now.
Good show and congrats on making it, eh! I hope the backpacking was memorable enough to, well, er... remember! Also, this story is a bright spot on the people-driving-cars-on-donuts theme in my mind. Last week I canceled cruise to tuck between two slower cars so a fairly recent American compact sedan (yes, it really was that un-remarkable) could push past and continue on (to push others outta her way). She wasn't particularly rude, just a tad bit tail-gatey until those in front of her could squeeze out of her way. But she had to be going at least 85. And looking at that donut blasting past you in moderate traffic at those speeds is, well, really quite scary.
i have a similar story from montana from last week as well, long story short going 75 on i94, i had my front tire throw its tread about 20 miles west of forsythe, mt, just after filling up on gas, and checking my air pressure, and had to hitch hike, with blown wheel 81 miles to billings. After a 2 mile walk in what felt like 90+ heat i got picked up, dropped off in billings, got a new tire, and luckily talked one of the tire store's employees into driving me back to my car for the last $25 i had on me... arent road trips fun...:ugh::ugh:.. not trying to jack your thread, just sharing your pain, and if anyone is wondering why i didnt put the spare on, its funny, i was driving a ford escort GT, and the spare it had from the factory was a 13incher that apparently dosent fit the disk brakes of the GT, fits the rear drums of a LX so one would have to put in on the rear, and move a rear to the front good old ford... as for why the tire blew???? the tire shop guy said it wasnt propperly mounted, so heat built up in it, dosent make sence to me as i know the tires were on those rims for 30k, with no problems
"Each town I encountered was smaller than the previous. It actually reached a point where a shed w/ some goats was called a town." :laugh::laugh: that just made my night! Glad to hear you made it home alright. I was genuinely worried about you after talking to you last night!
The backpacking was unbelievable. The weather was perfect and the sights amazing. I will be posting some of my pictures at a later time. In the scheme of everything the flat seems like a minor inconvenience. I am also scared of people (mainly mini-vans for some reason) hauling down the highway going 80mph or higher on the spare. They are E rated for 50mph. I was terrified going 70 on it, just for fear of it going out, especially since I didnt have another. after about 5 hours though 60mph felt pretty safe. That sucks! I am glad that my situation was not as bad as yours. Thank god Subaru was smart when they picked their spares. I guess it was a good thing I went to put the spare on the back first, as I have WRX brakes and it probably would not have cleared my front rotors now that I think of it. Good thing that the rears on my car are the exact same as a WRX. Seriously, there was a big green road sign saying Vananda 8 miles. In 8 miles there was a shed and some goats. I was hoping for a 24 hr gas station but oh well. Also thank you for the concern. I am thankful for all of the help you and fflsxte were able to give me over the phone. Thanks. I will be more surprised if it still works. I am looking for a new transmission though so hopefully this one wont be in there much longer. Sounded like my input shaft bearing is on its last legs, and the synchros past their prime about 100,000miles ago.
this thread is making me nervous.. i'm planning on taking to scoob out to montana to visit my gf's dad next month
