Any tire experts out there? (1 Viewer)

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Hi All -

I recently had some Hankook tires installed on my GX470 at the local Walmart. This is the first time I have tried them. Anyway, I went to rotate the tires the other day and found the following defect on the inside wall of the front passenger tire (see below). The defect appeared smooth and linear, so I figured it was a manufacturing defect.

Took it back up to Walmart to see if they would replace it, and of course they said "This must have happened while driving. We would never mount something like that". Of course, the guy who worked there had never seen anything that caused a defect like that in his 13 years there.

Just wondering if anyone who has seen thousands of tires would know what caused this? I mean, if it was actually caused by driving, I have no problem replacing it out of my own pocket. But to say you have never see anything like that, and then just assume it happened while driving seems a little ridiculous. I have certainly never seen a mark like that on a tire.
Tire1.jpg
Tire2.jpg


Thanks for any help!
 
How can something that goes around in circles have a linear groove on the sidewall like that? The only thing that comes to mind would be maybe a carwash if they had a rail to help guide the vehicle/tire down the conveyer. Or it's a blem or a defect in the tire. It appears to be significant, and possibly dangerous.
 
How can something that goes around in circles have a linear groove on the sidewall like that? The only thing that comes to mind would be maybe a carwash if they had a rail to help guide the vehicle/tire down the conveyer. Or it's a blem or a defect in the tire. It appears to be significant, and possibly dangerous.
That is what I said to the guy. No car washes. Like I said, he could not tell me how I did it, but he was sure I did it. I think he was leaning toward replacing the tire until he talked to the tech who swore he would never mount a tire with that defect.
 
I'm no tire expert, but looking at that indentation it appears it has vertical scuffs going perpendicular to the indentation, like something was spinning.
I've had bad tires b4, and usually the tire store would have a manufacturers rep look at it to determine if there were was something wrong or not.
I once had a blow out which blew the tread off, on my tow rig while coming back from trail riding. I thought nothing of it, the tires were several yrs old, so I bought another tire. I made another trip the next month and a different tire blew out, I went back to the tire store and questioned if there was something wrong with all the tires. The manufacturers rep looked at the 2 blown out tires and gave me 2 new tires. They then sold me 2 more frt tires at cost and paid for the body damage to my truck from the 1st blow out. I've also had issues with some car tires I had. It was a different store, but they had the tire looked at by a rep and determined the tires were bad. Wally World should do the same thing. It's not techs decision or purview to determine what is bad or not.
The odds of the installer noticing it is slim to none, especially on the back side of the tire.
 
I wonder if the tire got caught on the end of a conveyer belt at the factory or warehouse. Just grinding away.
 
it is an odd cut but its unlikely that it was a manufacture defect. most likely the tire caught a curb or possibly a pothole and it would be easy to miss tha damage since its on the inside of the tire. from all my time in shops ive never seen a tire come from a distributor with any damage like that, and any shop that i was at would never install a tire looking like that.
 
Took it to another shop to get a new tire installed. The guy there said it was probably from a bead breaker machine. He said that they probably mounted it backwards, and went to switch sides and cut it with an old bead breaker. That, or they put on a previously mounted tire. That makes complete sense to me since it is linear like the end of a bead breaker plate with the mark striations going toward the center of the rim.
 
i'm no expert but i agree it doesnt look like a manufacturing defect, and i also agree it doesnt look like YOU could have done that, regardless it should be replaced by the tire shop that sold it to you, they may not have to eat that tire, but even if they do its part of doing buisiness and doing right with the customer, because, again, it just doesnt look like something you could have done.
 
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