[Doug E]

Not sure how many of you have had the unfortunate experience of a tire blowout but I did today for the first time and lemme tell you, it isn't fun.

I was in the Honda cruising in the left lane on 95 South this afternoon on the way home from Columbia MD when she let go. Those first few milliseconds when you hear the bang, feel the car start to drift and then see the rubber go shooting out from the rear are almost surreal. Luckily I managed to gain control and slow down while moving over to the right shoulder.

When I got out and took a look what I saw blew me away - there was literally nothing more then a tube on the rim. The tread and belts were gone. Not only that but it had ripped away some plastic trim, shredded the thin metal on the wheel well lip and thrashed the side of the car (hopefully some buffing will remove that). I'm not sure what happened as there was only about 20k miles on that tire so I can only imagine I picked something up in the road.

After doing a sub-10 minute tire change on the shoulder (which let me tell you gives you a whole new appreciation for the sensation of speed as traffic is flying by you) I limped home on the emergeny spare.

All I could think about was thank god this didn't happen in the 911.

Best part of the day was that at the tire store here in Herndon I casually mentioned how I am looking to sell the car and the guy behind the counter jumped all over it and is interested. Crazy how things work out ...

[Marc A]

Dam buddy . . . dodged a bullet. Glad you came through it ok. Lots of horror stories of people getting hit on the side of the road while changing a tire.

The tires weren't Firestones were they.

[Justin Fischer]

Glad you made it back ok. I lost the front right wheel off an old Grand Wagoneer on I90 going into Boston once. Thankfully, I was starting to pull over b/c something didn't feel right, but I was still doing 50 or so when the wheel went flying and the I skidded off the highway on the rotor. Just for good measure, an 18 wheeler ran over the rim as it tried to cross the highway on its own. Poor little guy never saw it coming.

[Rick Lee]

That blows - literally. I had a rear left wheel come off an old truck I was driving years ago. It was gone, gone, gone and I wasn't even gonna run after it. Some friendly motorist drove up a few minutes later and handed it back to me!

[targa911man]

Try it on a motorcycle sometime. When I was a kid I had a blowout on a Yamaha 305 at about 60 mph out on Rte 7 near Reston. Fortunately, I did not react by trying to brake. In fact, I didn't know what the hell to do except try to stay on and upright. My friend behind me said it looked like I was riding a bucking bronco. That is a pretty good description of what it felt like too.