thombiz

We purchased our '05 SC430 last October and quickly switched to 17" Work VS-KF wheels and Michelin Primacy tires. I had put the OEM wheels and the mounted tires up in the attic just in case I needed them for whatever reason. This week I decided I wouldn't need them in the future so I took them to a tire shop and had the tires unmounted thinking I could sell the tires on Craigslist and put the wheels on the classifieds here on Club Lexus. Like any plan, things went bad in a hurry as the tires were removed from the rims. The tires were Bridgestone Potenzo RE 050A runflats. Incredibly, two of the tires were coming apart on the "INSIDE" of the tire, where the shoulder meets the sidewall! This disintegration had produced a jagged crack about 1/8" wide and 1/8" deep for about 3/4's of the circumfrance on two of the tires. From the outside, the tires looked perfectly normal. Dang! Those things were seriously dangerous. The two other tires must have been replacements for two previous tires because they had lots of tread and no signs of interior disintegration. I gave the good tires to the tire shop.

When I got home with the wheels, I started cleaning them up so I could put them on the classifieds here. I hadn't gotten very far when I discovered one of my wheels had a crack on the back side of the wheel at the bead lip.
Ok, so that one is scrap metal. I started cleaning the next wheel, and I soon discovered it had the paint touched up almost all the way around the wheel and whoever did the work hadn't done a very good job. So now two of the wheels are only good for scrap. When I looked closely at the hubcaps, I discovered two of them had numerous scratches. It's amazing the things that show up when you are looking from about 12 inches away. Well, at least the other two wheels and hubcaps were in good shape and will be posted in the classifieds here on CL.

I was quite surprised to see two of the tires disintegrating from the inside and was equally surprised to see the cracked wheel. In 50 years of driving, it's the first cracked wheel I've ever had. I'm surprised that the tire mounted on it still held good air pressure. Just a word of caution, if your tires are riding rough or acting strange, get them checked out. Plus, if your tires are leaking air pressure, it just might be a cracked wheel.

tuterz

iTrader: (11)

the crack wheel probably didnt hold air that is why the tire is all messed up.. could it possibly be that your tire was flat and you didnt know it? .. you were driving on the run flats while it was flat? your tpms could have been disabled..?

thombiz

I'm sure that driving the car on runflats with low air pressure didn't happen during our ownership, but it sure could have happened with the previous owners. I found the car online, and flew out to Calif. and drove the car back to Texas. I checked the air pressure when I left because the TPMS light was showing. After checking the pressure with a guage, I deduced the batteries on the senders must have died. Just before I took the wheels to the tire shop, I let the air out of them so they would be ready to dismount and all tires had about equal "normal" pressure, so for some reason, there wasn't a leak at the crack in the one wheel. It is possible the consignment lot where I bought the car may have discovered the leak and sprayed something on it to keep it from leaking long enough to sell the car.

It is quite possible the previous owner had tire / wheel / TPMS problems and drove the car with the tires in "runflat" mode, not realizing they had a leak.