Ferrari Mailing List: Re: More money than brains!

[Dennis Liu (bigheaddennis]

Charles, thanks for the advice.  And in your case, your advice may prove to
be more brains than money, contrary to the subject line.

But allow another possibility or two.  You could have had a puncture in the
tire or a cut in the sidewall that caused a quick or sudden loss of
pressure.  Even at relatively slow speeds, if the tire loses all air, even a
couple of hundred feet may be enough to destroy the sidewall.  So it may not
necessarily have been the age of the tire.  Currently, tire manufacturers
are now starting to adopt age limits on usage, but it's a matter of some hot
debate (much like how long a timing belt will last; Charles Perry may be the
outlier indicator for both!).  I've also seen people hit curbing hard enough
to pop the bead on the tire, causing a loss of air pressure and subsequent
destruction of the tire.  

Have you taken a look at the other rear tire?  Often times, due to the
negative camber designed into these cars, and the additional wear caused by
the mid-engined design and heavy acceleration, the inside edge of the tire
will wear out much, much more quickly than the outside.  So unless you get
under the car and look closely, the tire may look fine on the outside edge
with plenty of tread, but could actually be read to catastrophically fail.

Bottom line, I've witnessed and experienced enough tire failures, both on
the street and at the track, where the catastrophic loss of air pressure
caused near-instant deflation.  Any continued driving results in the
shredding of the sidewall, which may lead one to conclude that it was
sidewall failure when the cause was something else.

Vty,

--Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Perry [mailto:charles [at] carolina-sound.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:05 AM
To: Dennis Liu
Cc: cmidgett [at] inkonit.com; The FerrariList
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] More money than brains!

Speaking of which, I have another piece of advice for the List since I seem
to be becoming the resident poster child for learning things the hard way
even though I know better.

Yesterday in taking some friends out for rides, I suffered a catastrophic
rear tire failure in the Diablo. There was a loud bang, and when we pulled
over, the sidewall had almost entirely perforated. We were EXTREMELY lucky.
If it had happened 90 seconds earlier it could easily have caused an
accident that totalled the car and severely injured us. As it was, it
happened at low speed on a straight stretch and did no damage to the car at
all. 

We had checked the tire pressure before leaving the house (as I almost
always do), so the only things I can think of that would've caused such a
severe failure is age of the rubber (I believe these were the original
tires, making them 8 years old, albeit with under 10k miles on them), or
that a previous owner operated the car with low tire pressue and weakened
the sidewall before I ever got the car.

Either way, please remember to replace your tires at the recommended time
intervals and consider replacing them on any used car you buy as you never
know what the previous owner did. In my case, a set of tires will run about
$1500, but that is small insurance to protect your life and a six-figure
car.

-- charles


-------------------------------------------------------------------
                         Charles G. Perry IV
 
Carolina Sound Communications           (843) 571-4488
1941 Savage Rd., Suite 200G             (843) 571-4492 fax
Charleston, SC 29407                    www.carolina-sound.com
 
"The problem with doing things right the first time is that no
               one realizes how difficult it was."
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