Corwin C wrote:
Granted, I'm pretty sure that I don't put on the miles that you do, but in 19 years of commercial driving I've never had one go off like a bomb. Flat, yes, loose chunks of rubber, a couple of times, all kinds of lumps & odd bumps, yes, but explode?! not yet, knock on wood. And all of our tires are by contract from the lowest bidder.
Had one go on my trailer in Texas last summer that bent one of the 2.5 x 2.5 x 1/4 aluminum I-beams under the trailer. I don't know if It was the initial bang that did it, or the 4 foot long flap of rubber slapping around as I got the truck stopped, but it made a mess. 15 years ago I had a tire on a 6 wheel straight truck let go and almost tip the truck over. In the interest of full disclosure I shopuld mention that I was driving a bulk feed truck, and those tend to be top heavy and tippy to begin with, and the tire in question was a 12 ply bias ply deep lug agricultural tire with an inner tube on a multipiece split ring rim. When that one went, the biggest piece I could find was fist sized.
USUALLY drop center rims with radial tires die a more gentle death, but I've had quite a few of those pitch dangerously big chunks of rubber around too. Even if you are just talking about a tire coming apart, thats a lot of rotational velocity flinging heavy things around. Nothing to mess with.
