I just noticed recently that it felt like a tire was unbalanced (slight vibration at speed) and just yesterday the right front started losing air. I looked at it tonight, and it has a huge bulge in the sidewall. The tire is toast. It still has tons of tread though. Does anyone know if this failure is covered by the new car/ tire warranty, or will it be claimed to be "road damage"? See these pics:

 

Tire warranty = almost certainly not, regardless of circumstances. OEM tire warranties are teh sux0rz. Also, it looks like you hit a curb or pothole... look below the bulge at the indentation.

 

What do you mean the indentation? I'm serious how one could tell whether it was a pothole or something else. The rim isn't dented.

 

 

so would that be the impact point? or just something that shows up as a result of the bulge? I've pretty well seen from some quick research that it's not gonna turn out well, but I'm still pissed cause I've hit plenty of pot holes with other cars and never had this crap happen. Plust the cost of replacments sucks for these tires. Gonna have to ask my wife if she hit any recently because I sure can't remember hitting any potholes.

 

Yeah, the price is horrible... If you're looking to change later on, I'd just bite the bullet now and buy new tires period. (Depending if you want performance tires or not).

My tire was 300$ when I got into my small accident. Outrageous.

 

a version of the pilot mxmv4 can be had for a lot less than that ($140 or so) through tire rack, but still expensive.

 

Last winter i hit a pot hole , That i thought would have destroyed the tire and rim. 60 mph and there was a little rubber scuff on the rim , And not a bit of tire or rim damage. I was amazed.
If that bulge is from a pot hole or curb , The person that was driving surely would remember a hit like that.

 

That's what I'm thinking, but I did a bit of research online, and the tire companies will always blame it on road conditions etc, just like XXL said. I'm pissed but pretty well screwed.

 

My experience with Firestone and car dealerships is that it will not be warrantied. Firestone will be very happy to sell you new tires. The fact is you don't know what happened, and even if you did they will find a way to use it against you. Buy something else and give Firestone the heave ho. And in pricing new tires in that size I found that I could get really good ones for about $300, a bargian in my opinion since tires for my Bronco a few months ago were $260 each, its rolling around on over $1000.