Automotive Guru's: Tire Question

[Patron God of Pirates]

I know there are allot of car buffs here on AO. I'm the furthest thing from it (if I knew less about cars I Would have to wear a dress). I have a quick, fairly easy question for you.

How far is it safe to drive (highway) if one of your rear (non-driving) tires has metal threads starting to show?

Details-

The threads are poking though a little bit on the inside of my rear left tire. The strip where they are starting to poke through is roughly 6 inches long.

I plan on replacing all four tires tomorrow, but I have a long drive ahead of me tonight.

-Thanx-

[shartley]

Re: Automotive Guru's: Tire Question

Originally posted by Patron God of Pirates
I know there are allot of car buffs here on AO. I'm the furthest thing from it (if I knew less about cars I Would have to wear a dress). I have a quick, fairly easy question for you.

How far is it safe to drive (highway) if one of your rear (non-driving) tires has metal threads starting to show?

Details-

The threads are poking though a little bit on the inside of my rear left tire. The strip where they are starting to poke through is roughly 6 inches long.

I plan on replacing all four tires tomorrow, but I have a long drive ahead of me tonight.

-Thanx-

[ShooterJM]

Yeeesh. If it's a really good road, you go slow, etc. You might get away with it.

Is it showing bad or just barely poking through? If it blows out on you you'll have dented rims, maybe broken axels and control arms,etc. expensive stuff. I'm with sam, throw a cheapie tire on it. Or go to a place and see if they drop some goop on it just for the ride.

[Patron God of Pirates]

Best to error on the side of caution I suppose. What is this "goop" you speak of?

[ShooterJM]

I don't know this liquid rubber crap. One of my friends worked at a local tire place. His girl's car's belts started showing so apparently he smeared some of this rubber stuff on. Not sure how much good it'd do, but I suppose it'd keep the steel from catching on anything.

[Hasty8]

Put on your spare.

The radial belts and the tires rubber only work best when they work together. If you have one missing the equation can fall apart and with catastrophic results.

Blowouts (tires at least) are never fun.

A small sized spare should be good for about 500 miles I think and a full size spare is just another tire.

Gotta go.

[Patron God of Pirates]

Thanks for the input folks

I've decided to get all four replaced here. Better safe than sorry.... or dead

[shartley]

Good to hear. Smart move.

[kevdupuis]

Good choice. There is a chance that with the steel belt frayed it will seperate from the rest of the tire and shread whichever wheel well/fender it is in. I've only seen this happen once, and it opened up a steel wheel well like a can opener. It was interesting opening the trunk and being able to see through to the back tire.