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

 

well you drove 7 miles on a flat/flatish tire. fix a flat is for tires with a slow leak. For all they know the damage to the inside of the tire was caused by driving it when flat.

It probably would have been a better idea to get the car towed and the tire fixed properly. without risking damage to your wheels or further damage to the tire.

Maybe if your lucky and bought tire racks roadhazad you'll be covered and good to go. If not...I hate to say it but your probably out of luck.

 

x 100.

That you stopped and there was no air in the tire means you were driving on a flat tire.

The whole time you were driving and it was "getting looser..." that's where the belt was shredded.

I've driven 1 block on a flat tire and damaged it beyond recognition (not with the S2000).

Any amount of driving without air in the tire = you're damaging it.

There's no way they're paying you $1000 for that.

It would be really hard to claim "defective tire" after 5100 miles as well.

With all the crap potholes on Chicago highways, it's worth it to buy the "Road Hazard Protection" that the Tirerack offers for $20.

 

C'mon, man.

You drove on the wheel and damaged it instead of having the car towed.

You can get it repaired for $100 or buy a set of clean, used AP1 rims for $500.

AAA or Road Hazard would have saved you here.

For all you know, you could have hit a pothole, damaged your wheel and the tire... then drove on it making it worse.

Lots of people have been very happy with those tires. I think it's more the road rather than the tire's fault.

The City of Chicago actually has a reimbursement program that you can fill out online. You mail them an estimate and they pay up to $400 or so dollars.

I'd go that route rather than trying to blame a defective tire as the inciting event.

 

when i had a tire on my s2000 blow out the sidewall and it lost ALL air pressure IMMEDIATELY it still took me about 10 seconds to actually realize that the tire was flat. So with Zero air in the tire, the car felt a bit 'loose' like you described.

When it 'got really bad' is probably when driving on the tire cause the belts to explode inside your rim.

rule of thumb. If something is weird with your car. Pull over immediately and check it out before further damage is done. Your lucky the tire didnt come off the rim and destroy your fenders when the belts broke.

 

Here's why I didn't pull over immidiately. In the morning it was fairly warm and it was raining so the roads were damp. The temperature was supposed to be dropped below freezing by afternoon and it was supposed to be snowing. I just thought that the damp road was becoming icy causing the car to feel loose. That's why I simply slowed down instead of pulling over right away.

Up to this point I've been very happy with the tires. They handled awesome in the snow. I just don't see how the road could have caused the damage. That portion of I-294 is all-concrete and there weren't any potholes. I think the damange to the rim was caused by the side-streets which were full of pot holes.

I'll call Dunlop tomorrow and see what will happen. I would be pretty happy if they reimbursed me for my out-of-pocket expenses. That's why I was thinking of asking for everything hoping that I would be reimbursed for my costs. Obviously I'm not going to be ordering a brand new wheel from Honda. In fact, I'm not even going to do anything with that wheel, it's just cosmetic damage.

 

so i am guessing you didnt get the road hazard protection from tirerack?