I have mentioned a few times that toward the end of my career as a Tire Design Engineer, I became a specialist in failed tire inspection. In my RV tire seminars, I have likened this work to what was shown in the TV series “CSI”.
I will be sharing the results of a few of my inspections over the next few weeks and months, but will start off with one of the more exciting types of tire failure. I was not involved with the tire seen in this video, but it provides the evidence on why it is recommended that if your car or truck is stuck in mud or on ice you should not spin your tires. The video is just entertainment.
I believe this truck was part of some entertainment at some auto event, but it shows what can happen when you exceed the speed capabilities of a tire. The wire in the tire bead that holds the tire on the wheel can fail at excessive speed.
Pictures of “shattered” tire
Here are some pictures of a tire I did receive as part of my job.
This is what the tire looked like when I received it.
As you can see, it looks like the tire was “shattered”. This is very unusual, as normally tires fail from either a sidewall failure from being run low on air, or have a belt detachment due to long-term overloading and excessive heat.
This picture shows the broken steel of the belts and does not show signs of detachment between the belts.
When steel fails from tension, the steel shows a narrowing of the filaments as easily seen in this shot of the tire bead wire. This is the classical “Cup – Cone” tensile failure of steel.
Here is what the bead wire looked like.
A close (microscopic) examination of the steel filaments shows the signature “Cup – Cone” shape, as seen in this electron microscope comparison of tensile failure versus a cut filament, as seen in the lower right.
This is one of the PowerPoint slides I use in my RV Tire seminars.
The bottom line
So the bottom line is that if you are stuck on mud or ice and your car or truck does not have “limited-slip” differential if one tire stops and the other spins, the spinning tire can easily exceed the high-speed capability of the tire.
So, do not “spin” your tire in an effort to get moving. I would also recommend against showing off at car shows, or anywhere else, for that matter.
Roger Marble
Check out my Blog www.RVTireSafety.Net
Read more from Roger Marble on RVtravel.com.
##RVT1126
At least he had a helmet on. Will not stop the headache.
If that driver does that again he may want a load of sandbags in the bed of the truck. Always thought burnouts were crazy stunts, not entertainment.
Hi, Ken. I think “crazy stunts” = “entertainment” for a lot of people.🤔 Have a good night. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Hi Roger, that was sure an impressive demonstration of a tire failure! Looking at the background it may have been a HOLLY carburator performance show! The aftermath of that tire explosion was extremely destructive to say the least! I was wondering if the initial air pressure was way over what it should have been, then with the heat build up, so did the pressure inside the tire add to that destruction! Wow that under part was all steel that blew up, just think what it would have done to the light weight material on our RV’s, that’s even more scary!
Thank Roger
Snoopy
Dave, I understand your thoughts but the physical evidence shows a tensile failure of steel filaments (the cup cone stuff). There is no evidence of rubber “reversion” which is what you get when there is significant heat applied to a tire. I will have some examples of “Rubber Reversion” in the future. Simple tire over-inflation normally results in a single rupture of the steel belts with the primary failure being rubber tear between the filaments and not tensile failure of the steel itself.
Never seen an RV capable of spinning the tires or doing donuts.
The guys doing the burnouts want the tire to blow, part of the fun!
Ya, it’s unlikely to happen with a motorhome but most RV Trailers are pulled by Pick-ups which can certainly spin up their tires. Just FYI with a standard rear-wheel drive PU and with one tire spinning and one stationary the spinning tire will be turning at twice the speed indicated on the speedometer.
That’s very interesting. Thanks, Roger! 😀 –Diane
Wow, that’s a great unknown fact on the speedometer that I would never have thought of, thanks Roger!
Video shows that you can’t fix stupid! Lol
It’s a burnout contest. The whole idea is to make a lot of tire smoke and eventually blow the tire. They even make tires that smoke red or blue. It’s all in fun. They don’t drive home on those tires usually.
I grew up near Woodward Ave in the Detroit Metro area. Drive-ins, muscle cars, and illicit racing for titles … Didn’t take all that long to figure out that tires turning faster than the car’s lateral movement were going to be losers.
Roger, can you tell me if using “balancing beads” inside of tires (22.5 dia) is appropriate to keep these bigger tires in balance? Thanks in advance for your answer and keeping us informed with your features!
Something just doesn’t seem right with the way that tire exploded. I’m wondering if it was maybe filled with something other than air. Imagine that same scenario but with a passenger car, anyone in the back seat would be dead. I guess it could be an oversized tire as I know semi trucks have pretty violent tire blow outs but that blow out destroyed the bed of that truck which aren’t easily destroyed they are built to withstand years of abuse. I don’t know I’m just not buying it. Something else was contributing to that explosion to tear that truck bed apart like that.
Thank you, Roger!
First, that was a burn out likely done in 1st or 2nd gear, hardly fast enough to exceed tyres rated speed.
It does however put huge amounts of stress through heat and deformation in the tyre, also to make it easier to burn out some over inflate tyres.
The pictures you show of a blown apart tyre do not appear anything like the tyre on the truck.
You show a video claim a tyre is one and the same as evidence, I say fooyey on you ….
Go back and reread the article .He states this is a picture of a tire he received, NOT the tire in the video.
Also “The video is just entertainment.”
An open differential applies equal torque to both of the wheels. If one wheel has no traction the other wheel is limited equally.
When you “rock” the vehicle inertia of the tire spinning up is transmitted as torque on the wheel with traction.
Bear in mind that the spinning tire is going twice what the speedometer is indicating do keep it under 60.
An open diff has no “drive wheel” as many believe.
Burnout competition, tires are usually old, wore out, often half rotten tires that are purposely over inflated
This is fascinating! Roger, do you recommend where I can get more information on tire failures like you describe? Both from misuse and special circumstances?
I guess I need to stop doing that in my Class C. It has duals so it should do twice as much damage.
Try telling modern day “punks” to not spin tires..or “blow coal” with their hot rod toys. May as well stare at goats. It’s a good thing these young fools don’t have the big block hot rods we had 50 years ago.
Not like we didn’t try to grab a little bit of rubber even 60 or 70 years ago. There weren’t any punks with T-buckets, DA haircuts, sleeveless T-shirts or street racing back then. We did have goats back then -GTOs.
Hi, Kelly. About 60 years ago, give or take, I raced a cop off the line… and I won. (Then I stuck to the speed limit.) I think he was so shocked that I would race him that he didn’t even pull me over.👍🤣 Ah, the good ol’ days. Have a good evening/night. 😀 –Diane
I believe it. Cute girls with a twinkle in their eye could get away with almost anything.
🤣 “Almost” is the operative word in your comment, Kelly. I just got lucky that time.😌 –Diane
That reminds me of the time, 59 years ago, when I had left a party (apartment full of mostly underage drinkers) to go back to my apartment for a few minutes. When I headed back to the party, with open beer in hand, I was walking up to the door and a cop came out. I nonchalantly asked him if he wanted a drink. “No, thank you. And you’d better leave or we’ll have to arrest you, too.” (Maybe it had something to do with being 6’2″ with long blonde hair? Or maybe just good timing, since I left a couple of minutes before they got raided by several cops.) Yep, the good ol’ days.😊 Take care, Kelly. –Diane
Aside from potential tire damage, spinning tires in mud or snow is unlikely to get you unstuck – probably more stuck. The tires just dig a deeper hole to climb out of. Or with snow, it will turn into ice cradles with a thin film of water lining the cradle. Hard enough to climb out of, that water will refreeze when you stop spinning and adhere the tire to the cradle.
Thank you for the vivid and memorable video and discussion, Roger. Have a great day and safe travels!
A great article and a visual WOW moment to get the reader’s attention. Many years ago, and many past generations of tire development I was a lowly traffic cop training in traffic crash reconstruction. There was a segment on investigation of tire failures and the effects it causes for investigators to look at. The general motoring public seems to care little about how they get from point A to point B unless there is an inconvenience, and I point to the advancements in the tire industry and informational organizations such as yours to educate the public and reduce the calamities that would occur without such information. A “tip of the Hat” to the camping community for their awareness.