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Tire blowout.. Happy Father's day!

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Today started great. My wife planned a great day for us today, being father's day. She and our son made a little gift for my office. We then went to a local wild life park with our son, which he seemed to love. Then we had a picnic. In the evening, though, we had to go to the store to pick up some groceries and life had different plans about ending the day.

We were driving home and heard a pop. The car drove normal and there were no other noises after. I figured we hit a piece of plastic or something and we were above to pull up in a few minutes so thought I'd check it then. We stopped at a traffic light and when we pulled up after it went green, I heard and felt the unmistakable noise and vibration of a flat tire. I pull into a parking lot, go to look, and sure enough - the wheel was basically sitting on the asphalt separated by a layer of rubber. The tire was completely flat.

My first thought was: "Crap tires!" The tires are Aeolus all season tires. It's a Chinese tire brand and I have a lot of reservations about buying Chinese tires. I realize that we now buy a lot of stuff that's made in China and a lot of it is great quality but when it comes to tires, I have yet to buy them. Today didn't help. I didn't even buy the tires - they came with the car. I tried to replace them when we first got the car but then put it off and ended up forgetting about it. When I took off the tire, I found a hole in it that looked like it came from a nail so, to be fair, it could've probably happened to any other brand. But it didn't. I've never had a tire blowout like that. What made things worse is that the nail or whatever punctured the tire was gone. I think the car drove normal for the first few minutes because the nail was still in but then it fell off and all the air came out.

The tire looks like it's fixable but I don't think I'm going to do that and will just go back to finding a set to replace all four. Right now, I'm just thankful to not have had that happen earlier today on our way to or back from the park, which is about 40 minutes away and changing a flat tire on the side of the highway has plenty of risks. I was able to put the spare on in the parking lot and drive home safely. Happy father's day to all the father's out there and hope your day ended better than mine!


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