On the 2nd morning of our Country Roads and Mountain Mama Road Trip, we drove the Tail of the Dragon – 11 miles of mountain twisty roads with 318 curves. A ‘mecca’ for Motorcycle Riders and Sports Car drivers. A section around Mile 7 of the Tail had the edge of the asphalt washed away creating half a pothole on the right edge. This grabbed the rear passenger side tire and a ‘safe’ blowout / tire deflation. The Car dashboard tells me ‘You need a new tire.’ A safe tire blowout – rear passenger side – of a car carrying 5 adults and their accompanying luggage!

 

Fortunately, the car was on RunFlat Tires. Run Flat tires are designed to run even when deflated / punctured, and allows the vehicle to continue to be driven at a max or 50mph. This allowed us to drive on for about 40miles – slowly and safely – to the nearest Tire shop – open on a Sunday! If it weren’t for the RunFlats we would have been stranded on the Tail without any phone network and not being able to call any roadside assistance service, with an 8hr drive to our destination, Snowshoe, WV, still to go.

 

I dropped off the family at a local Cracker Barrel for lunch and then trundled into a Firestone Tire shop. Since RunFlat version was not available the car got a standard Tubeless tire. Being a Sunday, the shop was busy and a single tire change took nearly 2hrs. Once done, rushed back to get a quick bite and get back on the road, losing a total of 4hrs and putting us in Snowshoe, WV around 11pm.

 

 

PS:

Many will know that I am a big Discount Tire Fan. Great service and competitive pricing. Discount Tires have a ‘warranty’ that covers flats / blow outs / up to a new replacement of the tire. If our incident had happened any day except Sunday, I could have just rolled into a Discount Tire (which happened to be right across the road from Firestone) and had the tire replaced for free!

With the warranty, Discount Tire will replace the Tubeless tire for a RunFlat. The cost of warranty on the tire depends on the retail value of the tire.