Tire Sidewall Damage

Shawn

Lexus? Oh shi-
Joined
May 26, 2005
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MkVI GTI w/DSG
This is more of a maintenance issue but I figured I'd ask anyway.

I hit a curb yesterday at my uni and it gouged the sidewall of one of my rear tires about 0.3-0.4" deep. I'll post pictures in a bit, just gotta get the camera ready.

What do you guys think? Should I just glue it back or buy a new tire? I've heard mixed reviews... some say sidewall damage is dangerous to drive around with, some say it's fine unless you curb the exact same area again. Now it's a brand new tire and since it's a sporty tire the replacement cost is around C$575 per tire.

That's a lot for one tire considering it's only two weeks old as well. The guy who fixed my rim for me said that it was probably going to be fine. He's obviously seen a lot of these and he didn't stand to make a commission on me getting a new tire, so he might be right?
 
I'd just use it as the spare. Can you do that or do you have runflats or one of those pissy-small spare tyres?

I think I'll wait for the photos before I make any other suggestions...
 
That's a lot for one tire considering it's only two weeks old as well. The guy who fixed my rim for me said that it was probably going to be fine. He's obviously seen a lot of these and he didn't stand to make a commission on me getting a new tire, so he might be right?

Hit up a few tire shops, and ask one of the guys to take a quick look. More than likely they'll probably try and convince you to go with a new tire, but you never know.
 
I've driven cars with plugs in the tread with no problems. But the tires on my last car were starting to get dry rotted on the sidewalls, but it really didn't look like it was any threat to the tire. I just knew I had to replace them before something bad happened. I was away at college and I was coming back home to get a new set of tires. I was going about 60mph on the interstate when the front right blew up. Scared the living crap out of me!
 
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Is there a sidewall bulge? If there's broken ply it's just not worth cheaping out. I went over a railway crossing (didn't see it, it was sunk into the road) at about 40mph and "pinched" a tyre, causing a bulge where the ply had broke, and i could feel it sometimes when driving, mostly when pulling away. The wheels would feel like they were driving unevenly like one weel was going to spin and another was putting power down. Now imagine if i was at motorway cruising speed and because of the loss of rigidity from the broken ply added to the centrifugal forces ripped more ply and my tyre collapsed at 70mph. Not going to be fun.

Sucks that tyres are so expensive for you but i'd just get it replaced and call it experience.
 
It's just I've hadd too many of those 'experiences'... here are the pics, sorry for the crap quality:

#1 #2 #3

It doesn't feel like anything other than the outer part is damaged, seems mostly cosmetic to me, but what do I know about tires.
 
Seriously, stop using that tire... ASAP
 
That's a nasty bugger. Best get the spare on until you can either afford a new tyre or get the current fixed.

Replacing sports tyres sucks ass, ours are around ?115 each and currently all 4 need replaced after some track abuse....
 
Thats nothing, the rubber isnt really all that important, the plies keep the tire together. If theres no bulge, the plies should be ok. I once had something simmilar, just a bit deeper. When i peeled the loose bit of rubber off, you could already see the ply. But the ply was undamaged, so i just glued it back, so that it doesnt attract any uwnwanted attention at the MOT and kept using it without a problem.
 
Just went around to a few random tire stores around my area... they all say it's fine. I know the consensus here is to get it changed but those pictures really don't show it the way it is.

It's basically on the very top and one of the guys told me that unless you see the wiring and stuff inside the rubber you're fine. Plus these are some kind of weird tires which have a bulge which covers the outer lip of the rim to protect against curb rash and this peel is on that protective lip... doesn't seem like it's going to comrpomise the strenght and integrity of the tire.

I just glued the piece back on with some kind of waterproof/heatproof rubber glue and it stuck... albeit after holding it for 10 minutes. It looks pretty good, just gonna leave it for a bit and then clean the area.

I was planning on getting winter tires anyway (these aren't all seasons) so my tires won't even be getting used year-round.
 
It doesn't look bad. It just seems like you scraped the rubber and not the actual inner liner. I don't think it's that bad, but if you feel like you should replace it, go ahead
 
^ Yeah, the non-dealership tire stores all told me it was fine as it just scraped the very outer shell of the tire. Plus the glue has now set and I used some WD40 to clean the area of any left over glue and you can't even tell it was there anymore. You gotta run your finger very slowly over the area to notice anything.
 
Ok, I have damaged my fair share of tires while offroading, including gouging out the sidewall on the entire circumference of the tire. That "gouge" is little more than a scrape, it just took off a bit of surface rubber around the tire rim guard. It's nothing to worry about. It hasn't gotten down to any of the deeper layers so the tire's integrity is still intact. I have done that kind of damage to tires before and they have gone on without failure - finally to be discarded because of regular wear.

If you are really worried about it just watch the tire pressure, but I would bet dollars to pesos that the bead is fine and you have not compromised the tire at all.
 
Thanks for the info Blind. My new car actually has a TPMS so I'm all good in that department.
 
Shawn,
I found this post as I was trying to figure out what to do with my sidewall damage, also from scraping up on a curb. It looks to me like just rim guard damage (no threads or bulge present), and I was thinking of gluing the rubber flap like you did.

Since this was three years ago, you've probably have driven a decent number of miles on the repaired tire. How did it work out for you? I'm going to post a picture in a few. Thanks for any help/ advice!

Brendan
 
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