Horrible experience with Sumitomo tires
Whats weird about these sidewall failures is I have only seen sidewalls fail like this after a bubble forms & finally lets go. Like after accidnetly curbin a tire right on the sidewall or hitting a big pothole. My wifes car lost a BFG this way. Had a little bump in the sidewall when we bought the car, I thought nothing of it cause it didnt appear to be a goose egg sized one. And after a hour & half of driving in the summer heat the little bubble popped while turning a corner & her tire looked exactly like the one pictured above.
Its abnormal for a sidewall to just pop like this without prior contact with something. Not sure what could cause this honestly if the sidewall was in perfect condition prior.
I was kinda curious though cause the pic of the popped tire was bald but then you last pic you could see full tread width like it was 2 different tires? So obviously in those 5k miles you werent too easy on the tires for them to be partially burned off.
Is it currently cold where your at? Reason I ask is 9 times outta 10 if its cold a sidewall bubble will hide itself from a quick glance but after being driven on & the tires heating up it'll start to stick out. If you never noticed it while the tires were hot it could have been overlooked? Just a thought.
Wasnt doubting you, just noticed the pics didnt look right.
You mention to look at the sidewall wear in one of the newer pics, did you ever drive on these for any period of time with too low of air pressure? Even just to a store to fill it up after noticing it was low? I have seen sidewalls go after something like that without any signs of bubbling prior.

The majority of the people that complain about these tires on this forum do so because they don't grip well under "drag racing like conditions" and some complain about poor performance in the rain too. I don't care if they don't grip well in burnouts cause heck, its a burn out and I don't race my car ,and I have never had any issues in the rain yet either in my daily driver F-150 but my fbody never sees rain.
FWIW, the 10 or 20 or even 50 posts on this forum about blowouts if their are that many is a minuscule drop in the bucket to the thousands of people who use these tires and never have any issues, anyone ever sit down and post: "WOW, I love my tires, their perfect!" No, I don't often see that, just the negative stuff, like another poster said, a lot of tires blow out, not just this brand, its sucks that yours did and I understand your complaint but that doesn't mean all of ours will. If you check this forum awhile back someone started an entire thread on this brand because they did'nt like the way the tires SMELLED, really, they stink, would you like vanilla smelling tires, WTF!?!?! I purchased mine based on the following: research on line, price because I am not wealthy @ the time "TomzWheel" who/is was a sponsor here was great to deal with on these and a stand up guy, and the fact that this is a Japanese company and we all know how they do things and I am not too keen on Korean or Chinese or other 3rd world countries products although in todays economy who knows. YMMV
Last edited by 99'CajunFirehawk157; Nov 5, 2009 at 12:37 PM.
On the plus side, Carroll Tire Group a resaler for Sumitomos has been in close contact with me throughout the day, they are working hard to give me answers and deliver customer support I can commend them on that at least.
I give credit where it is due Cajun, I do not feel in the case I owe Sumitomo a thing, they owe me. I could have totaled my car maybe worse... ya know what I mean?
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How funny is it that when a cheaper tire blows out everyone bashes it and says buy nittos. LOL. Look at what happened to my nitto 555 while cruising at 70mph. Tires were in perfect condition with only 8k on them.
https://ls1tech.com/forums/racers-lo...ing-track.html
So now are you reconsidering nitto's also?
However the sidewalls do feel kind of mushy. Sometimes I am afraid to push the car really hard in turns; feel the car floating around.
Good tire for the money, but honestly I don't think I would buy them again.

next step after the ring forms is the sidewall blows out. granted while i do think that sumitomo's are some of the absolute worst quality tires on the market, your issue is a road hazard not a defect
shitty tires FTL, stick with BFG, Yoko, Falken.. theres a few more, but these are most common. Stay AWAY from continental, goodyear, sumitomos and other off brand BS. I worked for DTC for 3 yrs and I cant even tell you how many blow outs come in EVERY DAY due to shitty tires

next step after the ring forms is the sidewall blows out. granted while i do think that sumitomo's are some of the absolute worst quality tires on the market, your issue is a road hazard not a defect










