I purchased my Dunlop Wintersport 3Ds from the TireRack 5100 miles ago. Today I was driving the S2000 through Chicago on I-294. As I was driving along, I noticed the rear and becoming looser and looser, and I started slowing down. Finally it got very bad, so I pulled over to check out why it was so unstable. Turns out my left rear tire had gone flat. I was almost 3.5 miles away from the nearest exit and the car was sitting about 6 inches away from the right lane of the freeway and I couldn't pull over any further.

At this point I decided to call a flatbed and tow my car somewhere so the tire can be fixed/replaced or at least changed. As I'm looking for a tow truck on my phone, a tollway maintanance truck pulls up behind me. I talk to the guy and he says he can take me to the next Oasis and I can buy some fix-a-flat so I can at least get off the highway. I decide to go with this plan.

I get to the Oasis and I buy 3 cans of fix-a-flat and a box of donuts for maintanance worker. He takes me back to my car, and I put a can of the stuff in the tire. The rim comes off the ground, and there's air in the tire. I get in the car and I drive the 3.5 miles to the next exit. The entire time the car felt very unstable, so I only drove 45 mph. When I get off the exit, I look at the tire, and it's flat again. I take another can of the fix-a-flat and put it in there. Then I drove the car another 2 or 3 miles to the nearest Sears Auto Center. Somehow during this process my drivers side rim got curbed slightly.

At Sears they took the wheel off the car, and inside of the tire is full of baseball sized knots. The manager said that it was probably caused by a belt inside the tire breaking. They said that they only had one tire in stock that would ever fit my car. I decided to buy that tire so I could be on my way. I paid $165 for one Good-Year triple tread Assurance tire with mounting, balancing, etc and a $2 tip (all the cash I had on me). I kept the old tire and brought it home with me. I ended up limping my car home in a snow-storm. My 260 mile drive took almost 9 hours.

Given the diagnosis my the Sears manager, is Dunlop responsible? I'm planning on calling them tomorrow and requesting compensation. Here is what I'm planning on asking for:

$165 for the tire that I bought
$19 for the fix-a-flat
$573.50 for a new rim from Honda that got damaged
$468.04 refund for the tires (obviously I'm not satisfied with them)

Total $1225.54

 

You are not going to get $0.10 for the wheel, but you should call Tire Rack and see what they will do for you.

By all means, ask for the wheel, but just realize there is NO WAY you are going to get it.

 

Tire Rack only upholds the manufacturers warranty (unless you bought their roadside protection) and its not a very easy process with them. The only thing you'll get out of it is one new tire at best, nothing more.

Sorry for your luck on this one.

 

I called the Tire Rack this morning. They offered a discount on a new tire for $98 shipped to Madison. I really didn't expect them to offer anything more, since they're just a dealer.

After I called Tire Rack, I called Dunlop. They started a case and told me to bring the defective in to their service center. I will do that during my lunch hour today.

 

I had a similar issue, a few years ago, and Tire Rack was not all that helpful and it was clearly a manufacturer default on a new tire.

 

Keep us updated

 

Just got back from the Good Year store. They found a 1.5 inch cut in the tread. Apparently I ran over something.

I already ordered a new tire from the Tire Rack and it will be here tomorrow. It's funny how the Tire Rack can overnight a tire to Madison for $76 less than what Good Year was trying to charge for the same tire.

 

Buy the tire protection next time, it saved me on the tire a blew out on the trip up to Keith's B-Day a few weeks ago. It would also have covered the wheel if it was messed up.

Tire Rack's prices are really good, but it's a pain when you have a problem.