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[trunxzNG]

I was driving on the freeway last night. All of the sudden I heard a loud pop, then the tire warning light came on.

Got it towed home. I checked my dash cam to see if I hit a pothole or something but didn’t see anything. Any ideal what could've caused this?

Rear passenger tire:
11k miles Continental extreme DWS 255/35 R18

[kellenf123]

Hey man, I can't really pinpoint exactly what the cause was, but I can give you a couple things that may have happened. Also for a point of reference, I work at a tire shop. Due to the low mileage that your tire had, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that your issue had nothing to do with the tread of the tire, most likely had to be some sort of sidewall damage. If this tire was flat in the past and you got it repaired, depending on how long you rode on it flat, you could have some pretty extensive damage to the sidewall of the tire, however this is pretty hard to spot on the outside but it is very obvious of the inside of the tire. You also could have had a cut or a gash on the sidewall of the tire whether it was on the outside wall or inside wall of the tire. Whatever the case may be it was most likely due to some form of sidewall damage.

[E93Beast]

Low air pressure especially on a hot day.

[ewicky]

Had the tire had a flat before? When did you last check the pressure, and what was it at? What conditions was the pressure check, and what conditions were you driving in?
Photo of the tire damage?
What's the condition of the valve stem and core?
We can only speculate, but more info is a pre-req.

[trunxzNG]

Originally Posted by kellenf123

Hey man, I can't really pinpoint exactly what the cause was, but I can give you a couple things that may have happened. Also for a point of reference, I work at a tire shop. Due to the low mileage that your tire had, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that your issue had nothing to do with the tread of the tire, most likely had to be some sort of sidewall damage. If this tire was flat in the past and you got it repaired, depending on how long you rode on it flat, you could have some pretty extensive damage to the sidewall of the tire, however this is pretty hard to spot on the outside but it is very obvious of the inside of the tire. You also could have had a cut or a gash on the sidewall of the tire whether it was on the outside wall or inside wall of the tire. Whatever the case may be it was most likely due to some form of sidewall damage.

Thanks. I fixed the images. You should be able to see them now.
The tire was never repaired. I did however, hit a curb a few weeks ago. My indy shop fixed it but the tire wasn't damaged at the time.

Originally Posted by E93Beast

Low air pressure especially on a hot day.

I checked the tire pressure about a week prior. It was 39 psi rear and 32 front. It does get pretty hot here in Vegas though, over 100°.

Originally Posted by ewicky

Had the tire had a flat before? When did you last check the pressure, and what was it at? What conditions was the pressure check, and what conditions were you driving in?
Photo of the tire damage?
What's the condition of the valve stem and core?
We can only speculate, but more info is a pre-req.

I fixed the images. You should be able to see them now.
No tire damage prior. I checked the tire pressure about a week prior. It was 39 psi rear and 32 front. Two weeks before that I flushed the brake fluid and the tires were fine. Stem looked fine when as well.

[gde061]

Gonna give a novice opinion here, but based on the info you provided, my suspicion would tend to fall on the shop that recently did your rim repair. That is a pretty low profile tire and it is harder (I hear tell) to mount that setup. When they did your rim repair, they presumably had to un-mount and then re-mount the tire. That would have put extra stress on the sidewall. Many shops won't touch anything that low profile without making you sign something that says you understand that mounting them could destroy the tire / rim / etc.

The fact that it's a catastrophic tear not in the sidewall at the most weak points, but at the place whree it should be stronger, close to the bead-contact surface where the metal bands are and there is more rubber, I think my suspicions would be the same even if you didn't say you just had the rim serviced at your indie shop recently....

[delmarco]

I had a similar situation on the same exact Continental Extreme tires on my 2011 335i xDrive only thing was the inside wall didn't blow all the way out but had a crazy amount of premature wear right down to the steel cables. I took it to a tire shop because the tires were constantly losing pressure and the tire guys showed me the wear and told me that what happened to you would've eventually happened to me any day now. Glad I caught it in time. Pretty sure there may have been a bad batch of Continental Extreme tires because they are most celebrated tires on TireRack!

Another member suspected he had a similar tire blowout that lead to his near death accident where the front tire blew out causing the rim to break apart and sent his 2011 335i into a tree and ditch off the side of the highway!

Originally Posted by trunxzNG

I was driving on the freeway last night. All of the sudden I heard a loud pop, then the tire warning light came on.

Got it towed home. I checked my dash cam to see if I hit a pothole or something but didn’t see anything. Any ideal what could've caused this?

Rear passenger tire:
11k miles Continental extreme DWS 255/35 R18