Tire Blowout at 70 MPH

[Der]

Left Atlanta in late June for Maine, everything went great on the ride up north. Charging was super easy all the way and my truck performed beautifully. Ten days later on the way home I had a sudden right rear tire blowout on I-81, which was startling and a bit scary. My wife had insisted on buying a spare tire prior to the trip so naturally I thanked her profusely and the n changed the tire. Relatively easy.
The tires only had 7800 miles on them and I didn’t hit anything damaging. The incident recorder caught the whole thing. I’ve got a SC appt in a coupe days to have the tire assessed and the others rotated. I’m expecting to realize some sort of warranty action. I’ll post an update

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[beyond]

Being the pressure that our tires are on, hitting anything bigger than a nail can produce this.. I hit a scrap piece of metal doing 60 and the decompression was insanely fast. Good thing you have a spare!

 

[FooF]

I aired my tires up when it was 50 degrees outside. When I was driving it temps over 115 the pressure went up to 57 so I deflated to 52 hot. Any idea what your tire pressure was?

 

[Mathme]

I check my tire pressure via the dash weekly, usually about a mile or so from my house. With the record heat we've been having, those pressures will creep up...especially on black asphalt roads in the direct sun.

Most of the time you see flats in the rear tires as the the fronts will run (over a nail or screw for example) and cause it to spin up on hit head, where it's aimed almost prefect for the rear tire to run over it and puncture it. Given the load and the heat in the tire, and if said nail hit in the sidewall, it may have been too much.

This is just arm-chair quarterbacking, but could be one possibility. The key is no one was hurt and you had a spare so it only took an hour of your time to get fixed.

 

[lefkonj]

I don't believe tires are part of the warranty especially at 7500 miles. Road hazards destroy tires. I would gladly pay for tire protection with Rivian so anything like this they replace it for free but it doesn't exist yet from them directly.

I hit something on my tire and it quickly deflated, using the patch kit and compressor to get home and have home service replace the tire.

 

[iansriv]

Glad you're ok. Something similar happened to me within 2 weeks of delivery. Looked like a piece of shrapnel. Replaced at Discount Tire. Then a couple of weeks later got a nail. Discount tire offers a road hazard warranty for about $450. I got that.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

Glad your ok! If your able share the video would be cool to see what happened. Hopefully covered under tire warranty.

 

[Der]

I aired my tires up when it was 50 degrees outside. When I was driving it temps over 115 the pressure went up to 57 so I deflated to 52 hot. Any idea what your tire pressure was?

50 PSI while driving

 

[RivianRunner]

Being the pressure that our tires are on, hitting anything bigger than a nail can produce this.. I hit a scrap piece of metal doing 60 and the decompression was insanely fast. Good thing you have a spare!

Low tire pressures are much more likely to cause a blowout than high pressures. Especially if the weather is hot.

 

[Riviot]

Can you post the video? What size wheels, what tires on there, and what PSI? I don't want to assume based on your photo.

 

[FooF]

50 PSI while driving

Was getting to 57 psi while driving so I was concerned about over pressurization

 

[W1SE]

Unfortunately any tire damage/issues are not warranty. Even the original set of tires doesn’t usually carry a tire mileage warranty. Crazy but true.

 

[Der]

Can you post the video? What size wheels, what tires on there, and what PSI? I don't want to assume based on your photo.

21” Pirelli road tires inflated to 49 PSI. They were all within 1 PSI of 50 when the blowout occurred. I hope to have time to post the video in the coming days.

 

[DRJ564]

21” Pirelli road tires inflated to 49 PSI. They were all within 1 PSI of 50 when the blowout occurred. I hope to have time to post the video in the coming days.

This all super interesting. There is always a major reason behind events like this. I’m really curious.

I worked construction most of my life and owned a foundation company for many many years. I also owned many trucks, many trailers and I can tell you, there’s a reason for every tire issue.

You just need to narrow it down. How much cargo did you have? Could this have been the issue? How closely did you watch the tire pressure? Leaks can happen while traveling and not being able to notice. You can’t be expected to watch the tire pressures all the time. Thats unreasonable.

Edit: I bicycle, the number one question after an incident, “is the bike ok?”. How is the Rivian?

 

[Der]

The Rivian is fine. We had 3 adults in the truck and three suitcases. I had a 3 guitars in the gear tunnel, not a lot of extra weight. I check the tire pressure fairly regularly- several times a day on a road trip. I firmly believe that it’s unreasonable for a tire to blow out in this scenario. Whatever happens from here I’m still in total lust with my truck.

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