With approximately 45-50% of its' tread left my right front HXM decided to play boom boom with me right after passing someone while pulling back into my lane. It now looks something like this !!

 

What do you think caused it to fail?

 

How old was the tire?

 

I really don't know why it self-destructed like that. I certainly didn't see or feel anything on the road that would have caused it but there's always that possibility. There's just not enough left for me to make a sound theory but it's possible that a combination of internal problem in conjunction with higher heat from an extended 70-90 mph run of about 30 +/- miles and lower than optimal air pressure was at the root of it.

The tire wasn't that old if I read the date coding correctly since it was manufactured the 45th week of 2011 and it blew in the 14th week of 2013. That's well short of the generally accepted 6 years on the road or 10 years from manufacture.

 

What pressure were you running?

 

I generally try to keep them in the 30-32 psi range but 'my bad' I had not checked them since I had purchased the car so it's possible that tire was too low.

The spare that I'm using, while looking as if it is up to snuff only had about 15 psi in it??

As I've stated I'm only theorizing about the cause absent having seen or felt anything the tire might have hit or any early warning such as pulling one way or the other under braking.

 

Could've been some sort of manufacturer defect.