This Buick Century showed up at the curb (on the wrong side of the street) one morning just down the block from my cluster of rentals. I’d never seen it around before, and it continued to sit there, until eventually someone called the city about it, and it was tagged and finally towed away after about two weeks. The question is, just how far did they drive on that steel rim, and why did they stop here?
No, this wasn’t just a tire that blew and then the driver pulled over. This happened some, possibly quite a few miles earlier. There’s not much left of the tire.
And the rim shows quite substantial damage. Must have been a fun drive, although I’m guessing the driver may well have only fuzzy memories of it. And clearly didn’t care what happened to the car. So how far? 5 miles? 25? 50?
After 40 miles or more the bead area of the rim disappears completely it just gets battered out of existence so this one didnt get driven very far.
I would go with the five mile guess. There is substantial damage to the steel rim, much more than could have occurred from just getting a flat and pulling over on the multi lane freeway. (Although most tires will be ruined when this happens). It looks like there is some damage to the front bumper, the right bumper guard looks damaged on the bottom. It appears that the driver may have collided or run over some object, (maybe just a high curb), that burst the tire. The possibly intoxicated driver then fled the scene. Or the tire could have gone flat and a possibly impaired driver didn’t notice it for quite a while. I can imagine the driver muttering, “what the hell IS that noise?) If the driver had gone ten or more miles, it’s likely that another citizen might have noticed a car throwing up sparks and making an ungodly noise and called 911. The driver may reached his destination and had been staying in the immediate area.
“I can imagine the driver muttering, ““what the hell IS that noise?”
You don’t have to be drunk for this to happen. I had my first blowout after 16 years of driving. It was on the rear of an old Chevy S10 longbox.
The truck drove just fine with a flat tire at highway speed. The highway was rough and cratered and I thought the modest shaking was bad pavement. I think I drove for about a half mile before it occurred to me something was wrong. I had never had a blow-out before so I didn’t recognize the symptoms at first.
My guess is less than a mile, maybe just a few hundred yards, because the tire is still on and the metal rim is only moderately dented.
I blew the tires off a small trailer once. I had to keep going about a mile before I could find a safe place to stop, and they looked much worse than this
A tow truck buddy of mine towed a wrecked Rabbit with a flat tire, on empty rural roads (I was with him ). The tire looked like this one after a kilometer. By 3 km, the tire had been completely chewed up and thrown clear of the rim.
About 2 weeks ago I was passed by a car that was driving on a wheel like this. Oddly, the driver didn’t seem to be in any hurry to pull over and change it.
There are 2 reasons I can think of to NOT stop for a flat tire:
1. You think you can get home on it.
2. You don’t know how to change a tire or don’t have a spare.
I will agree, on newer cars it can be difficult to tell when a tire has gone flat, but if the radio (or your phone) don’t have 95% of your attention you can usually hear it.
Xequar gave reason #3 with his Detroit comment below, so I’ll move to add #4.
4. There is not a wheel/tire in the world that’s worth risking life and limb to a passing inattentive driver while changing it. If there isn’t ample safe place to pull way over and completely off the roadway, I’ll write off the tire and rim.
I’ve often thought about that also – if I get a flat tire here, how much will a replacement rim cost? Fortunately, the furthest i’ve ever had to drive on a flat tire was about 50 yards (slowly.)
I remember watching an episode of Cops where the was a police chase on a highway and the pursued car blew out one of the front tires & kept on going. You could see the sparks coming out of the rim at a furious rate.
Poor old car. I wonder what kind of damage to the suspension/steering & drivetrain this would do even if only driven for a mile or two?
I blew a tire once, and drove two miles on it to get off the bridge (small shoulder and the tire was on the left)
Tire was chewed up but the rim was fine, so I’m guessing 5 miles.
Bet the owner was mystified as to why his old Buick was suddenly capable of an awesome burnout at every stop sign.
Reminds me of Joseph Dennis’ photo the other day of the Pontiac. Drive it ’til the wheels fall off!
Maybe they stopped there because they ran out of gas and were “between money”?
People commenting about not instantly recognizing a flat. Yeah, I can see that. Always stunned that pit crews in Formula One racing or Nascar, can change ALL 4 tires in 20 seconds, It takes me longer than that for my brain to register “BINGO, Flat Tire!” Oh, and “RIM-RIDING”?? Isn’t that a redneck sport in places like Florida and California, involving spike strips, and 1/2 dozen (or more) pissed off cops chasing you?
One of the eccentricities of Detroit is that it’s a common occurrence to see someone driving on a flat instead of stopping to change it. I’m not even talking on the freeway or something. I’m talking through the neighborhood-flump flump flump flump flump! I don’t know if it’s a function of Detroit’s reputation for criminality that compels people to just drive to where they feel safer instead of chancing a tire change somewhere, or if there’s some other factor. All I know is I see it frequently enough that I have to conclude there’s something to it aside from the chance of numerous individuals all making individually odd and potentially expensive choices.
What a great anecdote about the Motor City. I’m sure it’s a combination of not wanting to be exposed and vulnerable to the criminal element, as well as simply not feeling like expending the effort, even if they did have a decent spare (which I can’t imagine being very likely).
Maybe the logic is that driving around on a flat is alright in that it won’t be long before they come upon a similar vehicle from which they can steal a serviceable replacement.
About 12 years ago now, I saw this guy going up the Harbor Tunnel Thruway (I-895) thru Baltimore (and under its famous harbor) with the right rear tire flat. It kept getting worse and worse. He could’ve stopped near the toll plaza and changed it, but NO, he kept right on going. Into the tube he went! I took advantage of the toll plaza’s E-ZPass express lanes to get by this guy. Inside the tunnel, I wanted him in my rear-view mirror if and when he caused an accident, not in front of me.
About halfway through the tube, I hear the rim hit the pavement, as he was about 3 cars back in the right lane. I was in the left lane, panicking that this idiot would try to pass me. Sparks started to fly. He kept going. Mind you, we’re all going like 50 to 55 mph, this a-hole included.
Once outside of the tunnel, he kept going another couple of miles and got off at Pulaski Highway (Eastbound US-40). The distance I am describing here is about 5 to 6 miles.
So to answer this QOTD, I’m gonna go with a guess of about 10 miles, although in the case of the featured Buick, that is a drive wheel, so more than likely it was less. I can’t recall what this car in the incident I witnessed was, but I’m pretty sure it was a FWD econobox of Japanese descent.
Let me pose my own QOTD: Why the hell would someone be such an idiot?
Maybe this guy was driving it like he stole it in the literal sense. ;o)
In true CC fashion, last Sunday morning while taking out the trash a 1980 Lincoln Continental was parked facing the wrong way with it’s left front sunk to the ground, the tire in shreds on it’s rim. A guy down on his luck got out of the car when he saw me, asking me if I had a lug wrench. It was pouring rain that night, and he started babbling about how he was doing his Kung Fu exercises at 3:00 am because he was so mad, etc.
Looking at the car, other then being dirty and crammed fun of junk, I’m sure he was living in it, it was actually in very good condition, straight and what I could see of the interior was flawless. It had expired 2016 tags. He said he got it from his Grandfather and was looking to sell it for a hundred, then fifty and finally twenty five dollars as he talked a million miles a minute. He was really amped up, probably meth. I had him open the trunk and found the never used space saver spare, no jack. The spare was low so I took it to my garage, aired it up, brought over my floor jack and lug wrench and changed it as he was walking around in circles on the street.
This guy was way to sketchy to consider discussing any kind of deal, I told him he was good to go and went back into the house. He soon drove off, I’m afraid that clean old Conti has a date with a junkyard soon.
I once had a flat on the Cross Bronx Expressway, back in the days when cars were picked apart in minutes and carcasses were common on the side of the road in New York. Of course because it was the Cross Bronx Expressway I sat in bumper to bumper traffic with many people motioning to me that I had a flat. I did not pull over and change the tire until I reached the New Rochelle tolls. The tire was trashed, but the rim was still ok!
I had a low tire, almost flat, on a rental Dodge Daytona in the Bronx in ’85. I flagged down a cop who told me NOT to try to change it or even go to the closest gas station, but to only go to the gas station across from the police station. He said that was the only safe option. When I told my coworkers about it, one of them told me the joke about the guy changing his flat on the Cross-Bronx, and having a guy pull over and say “Since you’re taking the wheels, I’ll take the battery”.
Years ago, I was driving my ’67 Riviera on the highway and I started to notice something was wrong when I changed lanes as the rear of the car behaved strangely, there was no noise but definitely something wrong.
I took the next exit and in the curve I wondered what was happening as it felt I was driving on a very slippery surface, I thought something had gone bad in the rear suspension. Then I drove less than a mile on another highway and I started to think it wasn’t that bad after all but then there was a loud explosion!
I pulled over to see there was a huge hole on the side of my left rear tire and the tire was so hot I couldn’t touch it. It must have been flat for a while and I had not noticed, then as it overheated, it exploded. I couldn’t touch it with my hands when I removed it to install my spare tire and it was still very hot when I arrived home about 3/4 of an hour later.
. I was lucky that the original H-70-15 red line spare was still OK as I had never bothered to check the pressure (it has to be stored with the valve side down and it’s hidden under a cover).
The next time I drove at the exact same place and started to hear a knocking noise, I wasn’t so lucky. I was a bit tired and I thought I could make it home but within a few hundred feet of the spot where I got that flat tire a year before, the 430 engine threw a rod through the block and frame of the car! That required a tow truck and two more ’67 Buick parts donors to fix!
The first time that it happened to me to drive a car with a rod knock, I was driving a friend’s 1984 Omega and I managed to drive over an hour while towing a small trailer tent with the knocking sound and the oil light coming on before a rod of the 2.8 finally went through the pan. We were back from a fishing trip and didn’t have cell phones with us so my friend told me to keep driving until we see a place to stop and call… Then we arrived in small villages and my friend told me “keep going until it fails”, he refused to take the wheel of his own car as he didn’t want to drive with a trailer!
On the Riviera, the same happened in just two minutes and the result was much more spectacular and costly to fix (My friend’s Omega stayed at the junkyard, we just picked up my trailer the next day and he got $64 for his car!). I made a picture of that moment (back when making pictures required films!).
Out of all the cars I’ve ever driven (or owned), I’ve NEVER done anything like that.
And that Century looks like it’s in pretty good shape. Too good to be abandoned!
I venture to guess 35-40 miles or more if at low speed. Reasoning? – in 1980, after attending a quarterly sales meeting in Framingham Mass. I drove home with a hefty load on. (Hindsight and 37 additional years of maturity have taught me how dumb this was, but hey…I was 25 and bulletproof.) Anyhow, I made it up Rte. 126 to Rte. 2 westbound just fine, until I hit the rotary in West Concord near the state penitentiary – and I mean, HIT it. At 35 MPH. I slammed into the rotary’s 6″-high curb and flattened the left-front tire. Surprise! – company car, flat spare tire. I ended up driving 22 miles to my apartment in Leominster, doing 15MPH in the breakdown lane with the flashers on. To this day I am amazed no Mass. State Trooper pulled me over (they had a barracks right on Rte. 2 in Concord). I paid out of my own pocket to replace the tire and wheel the next day; heck, it was my own fault they got ruined.
The point is, the tire was trashed but all there after 22 miles. No exposed steel wheel ever hit the road. These were belted bias-ply tires, too, on a 1979 Nova.
Perhaps someone drove this Buick at 40-50MPH to get this kind of damage?
I was thinking of my 66 Imperial on a narrow older freeway had a tire go flat on the right front at 75 mph, no where to pull over, I accelerated to raise the front of the car and it was even stable in corners at 80+ for 15 miles until I could pull over the tire was up until lower speed, once the lug nuts were off used the very long Imperial lug wrench to pull the tire off, too hot to touch, and actually smoking a bit. Got the spare on and had lunch at a diner before putting the tire in the trunk so it wouldn’t set fire to the trunk carpet. this was a six ply bias belted tire which appeared undamaged except for a large nail.
The rod knock story reminded me of buying a 65 Imperial parts car. It was 85% restored, but the oil pump went out and they didn’t realize it until noise from the engine. It was 100 miles from my home, but the noises weren’t too bad yet. I bought the car with new leather interior, new wide whites, new chrome, radiator and a/c, for $100 and since the engine was damaged already, decided to try something. I’d had a Hudson that used splash lubrication. To the six quarts already in the pan, I added six more heavy weight oil and a container or STP. The engine ran quiet, I headed home, planning 45-50 mph, but it felt good at 75+ all the way home, with Norm following in my 66 Imperial. splash lubing seemed to work. I drove it around for errands for months, finally putting it in storage. On his 67 Riviera, I’ve had several 430’s go out on me, I started switching them to 455’s, it’s a bolt in and never had problems with them. The 430 is a terrific engine when all is right, but the 455 stays right better.
Years ago a best friends mother found many ways to damage cars, she came home one day saying the 62 Olds 98 coupe (in 1965) was making a strange flumping sound. Turned out she drove 15 miles at high speeds with a flat left front (again on bias ply) Another time she said she couldn’t get the drivers door open on the Olds, we ran to the driveway. The reason it wouldn’t open was the entire drivers side was caved in almost a foot, but thats a different subject.
this clown might have been driving this car with this flat for a week! maybe some
other issue out of gas or seized engine finally brought the heap to a stop
so now he’s riding the bus again
Way back when I was in college, I was walking down to the dining hall one morning and saw a car sitting kind of funny in a parking place. The right front was way down. When I got to it, I saw that the right front rim and brake disk were ground flat all the way down to the hub! There was a groove in the pavement going from the wheel back out to the road and beyond, I have no idea how far. You have to be pretty drunk to not notice that, I think!
Back in the mid sixties, when I was a kid, I was sitting on the front porch of my Grandparent’s rural Michigan home.
A horrendous din began approaching from around a blind corner.
After a few minutes, a car appeared driving slowly on the gravel shoulder on four bare rims!
Even at ten years old, I knew this was very wrong.
I suspect an aluminum or alloy rim would have cracked or broken at the axle and the driver would not have gotten as far.
Just far enough to get there.
I live on hwy 32 a main road here, EVERY DAY there are at least a couple of cars with flats limping down the road, most newer cars which may not have a spare.
Years back I had a 56 New Yorker wagon with lifesaver tire within a tire Designed for wagons with no spare they were actually a tire within a tire, and worked quite well. On one trip with my Lady there was a vibration I couldn’t pin point, nothing went wrong, but I had figured out it was the left front wheel. When torn down the INSIDE tire had gone flat, the outside was fine. think they were goodyears.
I grew up watching TV and movies where a blowout on the road would cause wild careening and crashes. When I finally had one in my Honda fit I barely noticed it. I figured that the tire might be ruined anyway so I drove it about a half mile to Discount Tire which had a warranty on it and I was on my way again in about an hour.
I recall seeing some footage where someone was trying to outrun the cops on a flat tire. The wheel got so hot that it started the rest of the car on fire. The cops got him.
I live a couple blocks down the road from a tire shop so it’s not totally uncommon to see people driving down the street with a flat… but I’ve never seen one this bad!
is it legal to drive without certain parts such as INFLATED TIRES ,windshields,doors
etc and if you pass a cop with a flat flapping along is he gonna pull you over ?
Last night I saw a cruiser with a broken headlight. Can the cop pull himself over?
When I was 20 and ignorant, I bought a set of 17″ Lexus wheels (of the cracked example above in the comments, no less) for my car and did not realize the tires were probably ten years old and needed to be replaced.
I was driving on I-110 through South LA around 2:30 in the morning when I felt the unmistakable ‘thu-thu-thu-thu-thump-thump’ of a flat. I exited the car to find that not one, but both rear tires had gone out!
I was about 7 miles from home and had no choice but to limp the car five and a half miles to the parking lot of my local tire shop, at which point I walked home to return when they opened.. The flat tires were still on at the end and fairly intact with no shredding, and the rims had sustained no damage.