ShawnInPaso

Yesterday I had a Duratrac tire failure occur while I was driving. I was on a smooth paved road, traveling about 15mph when I heard a sudden burst of air from the rear driver side of the Jeep. I pulled over to the side of the road to see what was going on, and to my dismay discovered that one of my tires had a "blowout". Thankfully I was not on a freeway doing 65mph in traffic or the outcome could have been quite a bit different.

There was nothing in the tire and nothing on the road which could have caused the failure (no rocks, glass, metal, nails, etc.). The tire was manufactured in April of 2011 and has about 25k miles on it. My Jeep is a 2011 JKU.

My main concern for now is wondering if the other four tires could fail in the same way, a dangerous and expensive issue. I wonder if others have had similar failures with Duratracs (I've searched and came up empty handed)?

As the vehicles second owner (bought it at 7k miles), I don't imagine I have any recourse with Goodyear (have yet to check for recalls, etc.)?

Perhaps the photo will provide some clues to those with more expertise?

Fooddude

Sucks! Glad you're ok.


No issues at 65k on mine.

I always thought a blowout was on sidewall. Looks like something sliced it.

karls10jk

That definitely looks like something punctured the tire and not a failure on Goodyear's side despite my dislike of Goodyear tires.

Joe_B

Looks like you ran over something. That's a nice clean cut. It happens...move on

Gman*2007

^^^ what karls10jk said

zstairlessone

I change my tires out every three to four years regardless of how few miles I have on them, they do deteriorate. 5 years would put me into an uncomfortable place.

For vehicles that never go on the road it may not be as much of a concern, but I don't want to be in a bad place when a blowout happens.

You never know, measure tread depth and see if you can get a pro-rated warranty on it, it would surprise me but unless you try.....

ShawnInPaso

Thanks for the replies, I'm litterally banking on your feedback as I really don't want to buy five new tires just yet.

If I did run over something it must have occurred in the recent past, setting up the tire for a failure yesterday.

After I changed the tire, I stopped at a tire/repair shop to have the proper torque set for the wheel that went on Jeep. The old guy at the shop thought it could have been an age related problem with the tire. Even I could tell "no way". Geez, a guy that owns a tire and repair place no less.

I guess I'll hang the new Duratrac on the Jeep as a perpetual spare. Previously I had rotated all five tires at 5k intervals. Can't imagine putting the new tire into rotation would be good at this point?

Much appreciated fellas.

karls10jk

How many miles are on the tires now? We've all got different opinions but I'd run your 4 good tires on the road and keep them rotated. I'd buy a cheap used tire to sit on the back and rot. When these tires wear out then you'll be ready to go to a new size or a new style.

I say that because I personally run 4 matching tires on the ground and a mismatch tread spare. I've run multiple sets of tires on my jeep like this and actually only had two sets of 5 matching tread tires.

Mine is a DD of 36k miles annually with probably 2 off-road trips annually and multiple "long distance" trips (4-5 hours or more each direction). I haven't had any issues with doing it this way.


If the Duras are relatively new (half tread or more), then I'd rotate the new tire in and just ensure that it stays on the ground while the others take a turn on the carrier. I employed this method with a set of tires on this jeep and didn't have any issues with traction control or anything. They eventually wore to within 4/32" of old and new.

Mark Doiron

It's possible that someone hit a pothole very hard, causing internal damage to the tire that took a while to manifest in your blowout.

As for the spare: Rotating four tires is easier than five (especially at my age when putting a 35" spare back on the rack takes the help of a friend, LOL). If you plan to keep the same size Duratracs, just buy three new tires when the time comes, throw the spare tire onto a wheel, and keep one of your old tires as a spare and continue with four tire rotation. Or, if you're like me and need two spares for what you do, save two of the old tires as spares.

Do recommend not running the tires all the way down to the treadwear indicators: Those indicate performance for highway use, not for off-road use. Anyone who off-roads their vehicle should be replacing tires well before reaching the indicators.

ShawnInPaso

Thanks for the extra replies. Those are ideas I would not have thought of myself with regard to rotation and so on.

The tires have plenty of tread left, they have about 25k miles on them (hoping to get 50k total). Hard to imagine spending $1200 to $1500 every 4 to 5 years on tires when good tread is remaining. Maybe that's the price of a Jeep. My daily driver (not the Jeep) has run longer than 5 years on a set of tires, guess I should re-think that too.

Much appreciated.