Pirelli Sidewall Bubbles?

[NCFlyer]

I dropped off one of my PP rear tires at a local Firestone shop to remove a small nail in the center tread. The tire was holding pressure (32 psi) with no other obvious issues. The shop called and asked if I drove the tire flat, which I hadn't, when I asked why they told me the inner sidewall has "belt damage."

The pics show what I found when I picked up the tire. I'm trying to figure out how the heck that happened! Four blisters, evenly spaced apart and 180 degrees apart. It was fine at 8am and blowing up by 2. The manager refused to even consider it was caused by the shop. Anyone else have bubbles show up?

No warranty either, I bought these two years ago from a friend who upgraded his PP GT. He had ~1K miles on them and I put another 2K on them.
Guess it's time to start shopping for those michelin pilot super sports.

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[CB]

Maybe the air inside the tire got between the rubber layers from around the nail hole.

 

[shawn3210]

Same thing happened to mine, super small bubble though. Luckily I had brought warranty at america's/discount tire right when I got the car and got a new tire under warranty. If you have the tire shop call pirelli warranty line they sometime can give you a proration. But might be out of luck since you didn't buy them from a retailer nor did it come on the car new.

 

[VinnAY]

Potholes...doesn't take much at all to rupture a sidewall, less than it takes to bend a wheel, and I've done both. Requires replacement of tire.

 

[tyshenry]

Potholes...doesn't take much at all to rupture a sidewall, less than it takes to bend a wheel, and I've done both. Requires replacement of tire.

This^

 

[Paul@PKAUTODESIGN]

The inner sidewall has failed change the tire out.

 

[armykyle1 [HACKED ACCOUNT]

That's pretty common on those tires after pot hole interactions lol. Look into a tire with a harder sidewall.

 

[Jetset335]

I had this happen at the dealer when the rear tires were removed to fix small leaks. Ford replaced both rear PP tires for free. I had before & after pics that look just like yours. Only 2 bubbles, 5k miles on the tires.

 

[wildcatgoal]

Man... the people who have had problems with these tires. I thought they were fine. I never had an issue. I guess I'm lucky for once. But good lordy WTF happened to those!

 

[NvrFinished]

I put in quite a few years running a tire store quite a while ago. Many times what happens with tires that are brought in for repair or slow leaks is damage to the sidewalls from excess heat. People will drive on the tires not knowing they are getting low on air. The low air pressure causes a lot of friction due to lower rolling resistance. This heat causes the inner bladder along the sidewall to break down. The bladder is what makes the tire tubeless. The air will find it's way through the bladder and shows up as sidewall bubbles since they are the softest part of a tire. Cycling back and forth from low air pressure to normal when milking a slow leak will weaken a sidewall as well.

Of course with tire pressure monitoring systems in most new cars these days many of these problems can be avoided. I'm not saying this is what the OP did, but it's the reason for a lot of bad sidewalls.

 

[LG23]

Was randomly told by some friends to look out for this on these tires specifically, guess they weren't just making it up.

 

[saleen405]

These tires are garbage and glad to rid them from my car.

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