Hello,

I am a little frustrated that my very nice Q3 had a tire blowout on Hwy 5. It was a pretty scary few seconds at 80 mph. I was lucky that a tire/tow shop had a replacement 255/40 R19. I took the bad tire back to the dealership and got no help except to discard the tire.

Questions: Does Audi or the dealership have records of tire serial numbers installed on their cars?

Should the tire pressure sensor have given us a warning?

Has anyone had a similar experience with these wide Continentals?

I've sent emails to the San Jose Audi salesperson and the dealership contact but have not heard back.

Thanks,

 

Continentals are great tires, and I would stick with them. I have had Pirellis and Yokahamas also. After the Continentals I have now, I don't think you would be happy with the others, except for the Yokahamas, that I used.

 

Sudden blowouts are typically caused by road debris, and on rare occasion, an abnormality in the tire itself. However, you will most likely feel something wrong if the issue is the tire itself, as it will start to deform for some time before it blows. As for the TPMS, they only warn you when the tire pressure drops below, or rises above an acceptable amount, so unless you were driving around with a partially flat tire, it wont do anything.

What I would recommend, is that you check your remaining tires. All tires have a date stamped on the sidewall as a 4 digit code that indicates what week, in what year the tire was made. This will help determine if your blow out was caused by an old tire with dry rot, and let you know if you need to replace the other 3 as well.

See link here about the date code: http://www.tirebuyer.com/education/h...-of-your-tires

 

Thanks for the feedback and the link. I will check out the remaining 3.