I had a long day at work Monday and was looking forward to kicking back with a beer in front of the TV. On my way home on 405N I started feeling a little vibration in the CTT. I didn't like it but didn't think it was a big deal. Figured I'd just check it out when I got home. Anyway, about 3 miles later that vibration turned into the flub-flub-flub sound you hear when you've lost a tire. I pulled over to the right but couldn't stop for several hundred feet b/c there were concrete barriers up and not enough room to pull over. Finally the barriers ended and I pulled over. I got out (with cars wizzing by me at 70mph) and found this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3030579...728295776/show

I called a tow truck and about an hour later they showed up. I had requested a flat bed b/c I just didn't want to deal with changing the tire. Well, they didn't bring a flat bed and then when they did arrive they said they couldn't really put the dolley wheels on the rear wheel b/c it might slip off. So the guy tried to jack up the car but every time he tried the body would go up and the wheel would just stay on the ground. So he called another truck to bring a bigger jack. Again, body would go up but the tire would stay on the ground. They were about to give up and I asked if they could dolley and tow the car if I turned it around. They said it would be perfect but turning around on a busy hwy wasn't advised. I said I didn't care and backed the CTT up into the woods as far as I could and proceeded to make a daring turn-around when traffic let up. Ten minutes later and I was being towed home. This whole ordeal took almost 3 hours and I was mentally shot to begin with that night. The rest of my week was better

I took the car to Les Schwab yesterday and, believe it or not, the wheels wasn't damaged at all. I got 4 new Toyo Proxes S/T II in 295/30/22 for $1300. They look really aggressive and seem to be much stickier than the crappy Pirellis that were on it.

 

Wow man.. very sorry to read that. Can't believe your wheel wasn't damaged.., thats insane! On a side note.., I love the Toyos.., always have. Have had them on pretty much every car I owned.

 

Sorry to hear about your experience, I've dealt with something similar and never liked it. In fact, who would like to be stranded by the roadside (esp in a nice car like that it's kinda embarrassing) and having to wait for hours before assistance arrived.

On the topic of Toyos, I've tried Toyo Proxes 4 on one of my cars and initially they were good but as the treads were used past 50%, I noticed significant loss in traction when it pours. Esp on one particular hwy here, perhaps due to bad design of the hwy, there's always pools of water causing the vehicle to hydroplane rather dangerously even at speed of only 80km/h (50mph). To make matters worse, because my rears were more worn out, on many occassions I felt as if the car would fish tail and I almost lost control. Maybe their summer tires are better, and even though the Proxes 4 were very good in dry conditions, I've stopped using Toyos since.

 

sheesh.

sorry to hear about that, geeze.

on a lighter note, wheel made it out untouched, and now you have a nicer set of 4 tires.

sorry for your loss though.

 

Good thing nothing was damaged. Too bad a vendor doesn't do a group buy on the temp, inflatable spare.

 

Glad your wheel was undamaged, that had to be a little hairy turning around in traffic like that!

 

Are you missing yours?

 

Yeah, a little scary but I was so tired and fed up that I just went for it anyway. The two towtruck guys stood out in the right lane of the hwy flagging people over to the left (though we did all of this when there was a break in traffic anyway).

 

I had a set of Toyo T1R on my Caddy CTS-V that I tracked. They actually yielded faster lap times than the Goodyear Eagle GS-D3. It might have been b/c they 'spoke' to me a little more than the Goodyears. They did awesome up here in the Seattle wet as well.