Suspected foul play!

Soldato
Joined
5 Jun 2008
Posts
6,240
Location
Portsmouth/Fareham
Got a question for the motors contingent to see what their opinions are on the following:

Today I hear that my mum was driving back home after her day at work. Her company car is a Black Astra TDI '05 plate, serviced and looked after by the book (as she ain't paying :D).

Anyway, she is going down an A road not too far from home and about to join the motorway when she hears a bang followed by another, in quick succession. It turns out after pulling to saftey and calling the RAC that BOTH her front tyres have had a "blow out". She got towed home.

She works in retail management and today she was with her boss at a disciplinary hearing with a bit of a crazy woman suspected of all sorts of shenanigans. The womans husband is involved somewhere along the lines and knows my mum and her boss and also the car she drives.

First thing, what are the chances of two front tyres blowing out on a well looked after car, not actually on the motorway? Obviously we suspect foul play from somewhere or an incredible co-incidence.

Secondly, if someone were to tamper with the tyres, what would be the best way to do this to cause the tyres to do this? The company repair people are comming tomorrow to replace/fix the tyres and my old man wants them to take a look before they are disposed of.

I'm just glad the old tit is alright and dinner has safley made into oven, but this just stinks of foul play to me...
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Sep 2008
Posts
14,123
Location
Britain
To be fair, it's unlikely he/she could have done anything to the tyre to cause a delay in it popping short of giving it a serious blow to the tyre wall. Even then, the chances of it happening on her way home and both at the same time is unlikely.

With all due respect to your mother, it's far more likely she was completely oblivious to some debris and drove straight over it.
 

mjt

mjt

Soldato
Joined
31 Aug 2007
Posts
19,999
what tyres were they?
it could be that they were both identically defective and happened to be stuck on the same car :p
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2003
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19,413
Location
Midlands
Yeh.. you can't make tyres blow while you're driving along..

Unless they used small remote charges and set up an elaborate trap to trigger them at that point..
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Apr 2007
Posts
3,467
if the front brakes were binding, could the disks heat up the wheels enough to cause tyre damage?


to generate that much heat you would have issues long before damaging the tyres, the alloys themselves would burn you to touch and the brakes would literally be glowing.

you can overinflate a tyre and with a large hammer hit the sidewall to break the fibres inside, this would make a bulge which will eventually fail.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Jan 2003
Posts
17,542
Location
Bristol, UK
Slow puncture but getting up to speed on the A road caused it to rupture?

I believe I had this on my previous car as I was suspect that the tyre had a very slow puncture. Kept a close eye on it but after a few days it still visibly looked the same and the car didn't feel any different so I started to doubt myself, is the slight visual deflect due to parking on a slope etc.

Anyway, as soon as I went on dual carriageway at 70mph I knew something was up. The dual carriageway was short with no hard shoulder so drove to the end pulled up and it was as flat as a pancake. I had wrecked the tyre by driving on it but would rather that than change it on a DC with no hard shoulder and no break down cover.

Could all be coincidence but I am not so sure.

Perhaps if it was foul play they just stabbed the tyre with a small screwdriver or such and getting upto speed on the A road caused the little hole to rupture?
 
Associate
Joined
24 Aug 2004
Posts
464
Location
Chesterfield, UK
Wouldn't be surprised if it was foul play. I too work in retail management, and as daft as it sounds, I won't park my car anywhere other than a place as close to the door as possible, lit up like a Christmas tree, and covered with several CCTV cameras. We've had a couple of instances at work where people have been disciplined/dismissed, and disciplining manager's cars/motorbikes have been mysteriously vandalised...
 
Associate
Joined
25 Jan 2009
Posts
712
I know this mioght sound stupid, but i have heard of front coil springs braking on both sides and going through the tyres, Vauxhall Vectras mostly might pay just to check them.
 
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