Which is more dangerous - real tyre blowout or front tyre blowout?

Front.

Obviously.

Si

Why is it obvious? After all its "common knowledge" that you should have the best tyres on the front whilst engineers say the best ones should be on the back

Front. It depends on whether the car has FW steering or RW steering, and the overwhelming majority of cars on the road steer with the front wheels.

Rear is more dangerous. I've had 2 front tyre blowouts, and another front tyre go flat a little more slowly. There was no loss of control - just heavy steering (and all were in cars without power steering).

No, the 2 blowouts were on a RWD, and the front puncture (fast deflation from being spiked) on a FWD.

A rear flat runs the risk of severe oversteer. For many drivers, this raises the possibility of slamming into a tree or pole sideways.

John

However a rear blowout is more likely to put you in a spin.

--=20 Conor

I'm really a nice guy. If I had friends, they would tell you.

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I used to think so intuitively but a recent front tyre blowout hasn't convinced me.

:)

I only said "obviously" to stir up a bit of an argument.

The proper answer is "depends what the car's doing at the time" but that was too dull.

Si

What happened? Nothing exciting? Have you a recent rear blowout to compare it with?

cheers, clive

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That would fit with my (limited) experience. I had a front tyre pop on a Renault Trafic which was OK, just a bit hard to steer, though it didn't have PAS. I had a rear go on an Allegro and it was a right bastard to control as I was on a sharply curving sliproad at the time. The instinct to come off the gas turns out to be the wrong one!

Is it weakenss in the tyre that causes a blow out, or is it getting a puncture at high speed that causes it? Wondering if tyres rated at a higher speed than standard for the car help prevent a blowout. My car is fitted with two R rated tyres (106), but the other two are T rated (118). Obviously I never reach those speeds (1.8 Sierra), but seems logical to me the T rated tyre would give a bigger margin from problems. Anyone know?

regards bucket

I've never had a blowout on any car ever with crappy tyres or good ones. As I understand it underinflated tyres will heat up and that and the pressure may cause them to fail after a time. I guess they might fail under normal conditions if they've been particularly badly damaged.

Nothing much, really. I was doing about 40 and the steering suddenly went heavy. Perhaps not so much a blowout as a rapid deflation.

Not yet, but one lives in hope!

Had 2 (not really blowouts but very fast deflations - down in a second). One in a RangeRover, rear tyre, straight road. Wasnt even aware it had gone apart from a slight leaning of the rear end.

One in the front of a FWD small car, pulled a bit but nothing scary even though at 60 on a DC.

Suspect rear would be more of an issue but i have to say that if you are controlling your car properly (hands on the wheel and not concentratnig on chatting about the weather) its very easy to react to almost anything so long as you're not mid-corner. Mid corner id say both were fairly catastrophic on anyWD car.

Same here. Heard much about it over the years but never happened to me even though I do most of my driving on motorway. Same with the mysterious aquaplaning. Never happened to me. I see some very dodgy looking tyres about. Saw a V reg Mondeo parked the other day with the inside thread of the tyre showing though the wall.

bucket

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Art Deco saying something like:

A real tyre blowout is always way more dangerous than a fake tyre blowout.

Fair point.

Fair point.

Fair point.

Rear - obviously. You can fairly easily compensate for a blown front tyre with steering input - not so the rear end.

I've had 2 blowouts.

1. rear tyre in a front wheel drive Escort - chaos followed and was lucky to aim the car neatly through an open gate into a field.

1. front tyre in a rear wheel drive Sierra - calmly pulled to side of road, swore and changed wheel.