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Blowout or sudden deflation: which tires owners report it on

A sudden loss of air, often with an audible bang, rather than the slow leak of a puncture. Owners describe it as instant; there is no gradual handling change to warn them.

By Mark Bishop · Last verified 2026-10-07

How common is it?

Across every NHTSA tire complaint narrative on file, blowout or sudden deflation appears in 20%. That is the number every row below is measured against: a subject at 2× is one where owners describe this failure twice as often as the corpus average, whatever the total complaint volume.

Where it over-indexes

Tire or vehicleReports describing itShare of that subjectVs all tire complaints
Michelin XRV 60 79% 3.9×
Goodyear Marathon ST 37 66% 3.3×
Goodyear Unisteel 21 64% 3.2×
BMW 330I 10 63% 3.1×
GMC Savana 13 62% 3.1×
BCT Hi-run 20 59% 2.9×
Jeep Wagoneer 7 58% 2.9×
Carlisle Radial Trail 51 58% 2.9×
Castle Rock Radial ST226 28 55% 2.7×
Audi TT 6 55% 2.7×
Nankang Mission 16 53% 2.6×
Goodyear Marathon 60 52% 2.6×
Power King Towmax 74 51% 2.5×
Volkswagen Arteon 7 50% 2.5×
Volvo XC60 7 50% 2.5×
Continental Procontact TX 18 46% 2.3×
Genesis G80 5 45% 2.3×
Dodge Dart 14 44% 2.2×
Buick Verano 6 43% 2.1×
Buick Encore 5 42% 2.1×
B.F.Goodrich All-terrain 14 41% 2.0×
Mercedes-benz E350 15 41% 2.0×
Cadillac Escalade 8 40% 2.0×
Goodyear Wrangler SRA 55 39% 1.9×
BMW M3 5 38% 1.9×

Ranked by how far the subject sits above the corpus rate, counting only subjects with at least five reports describing this failure.

In owners' own words

Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA about blowout or sudden deflation across the NHTSA tire-complaint record. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.

WE PURCHASED FOUR (4) NEW MICHELIN TIRES FOR THE REAR OF OUR 2006 ITASCA SUN CRUISER IN JUNE, 2014. THESE ARE THE MICHELIN XRV TIRES (235/80R22.5). WHILE DRIVING ON I-24 IN MANCHESTER, TN, WE HAD A BLOW OUT ON ONE OF THE NEW TIRES (REAR, OUTSIDE TIRE BUT THE DAMAGE WAS ON THE INSIDE NEXT TO THE AXLE TIRE). LUCKILY, WE CARRY A SPARE TIRE ON A RIM. CONTACTING THREE DIFFERENT DEALERS IN THE AREA, TO GET NO HELP, WE DECIDED TO CONTINUE WITHOUT A SPARE TIRE TO OUR FLORIDA LOCATION. UPON ARRIVING IN FL, WE ARE NOT GETTING ANY SATISFACTION FROM THE LOCAL MICHELIN DEALER OR THE MICHELIN CORPORATE NUMBER. WE HAD LESS THAN 500 MILES ON THESE NEW TIRES. THEY WERE INFLATED CORRECTLY AND CHECKED DAILY. WE STILL HAVE THE OLD TIRE FOR INSPECTION. TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY, THESE TIRES NOW ARE ON A NATIONAL BACK ORDER AND ARE NOT AVAILABLE ANYTIME SOON.

NHTSA complaint 1125393

DRIVING ON INTERSTATE 8 IN AZ TRAVELING AT 65 MPH THE RIGHT FRONT TIRE BLEW OUT ON MY MONTANA 5TH WHEEL RV AND DAMAGED THE SIDE OF THE TRAILER. THE TIRES HAD ONLY ABOUT 7500 MILES ON THEM AND THEY WERE GOODYEAR MARATHON ST235/80/R16. THE TRAILER WAS NOT OVER LOADED.THESE TIRES SHOULD LAST LONGER THEN THAT.I STOPPED IN YUMA, AZ AND REPLACED ALL FOUR TIRES.

NHTSA complaint 1145398

TIRE SIDE WALL BLEW OUT ON INTERSTATE 95. DAY WAS CLEAR AND SUNNY NO ROAD,HAZARDS. HAD TIRE REPLACED RETURNED TIRE TO GOODYEAR THEY DENIED THE CLAIM CLAIMING IT AS AN IMPACT BREAK. NO IMPACT TO INSIDE DUAL HAD BEEN DRIVING FOR FIVE HOURS ON THE INSTATE WHEN THE TIRE BLEW AND IT WAS DAY TWO OF A THREE DAY TRIP ALL ON INTERSTATE ROADS.

NHTSA complaint 1161222

How to read this

Complaints are voluntarily submitted to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation and are not verified by NHTSA. They are owner-reported problems, not proven defects, and volume tracks how many of a tire were sold as much as how often it failed. What is comparable is the mix: which problems owners describe here versus across every tire complaint on file. That comparison, the mileage distribution and the mode rankings on this page are our analysis of the public record.

FAQ

How common is blowout or sudden deflation in tire complaints?
It appears in 20% of all NHTSA tire complaint narratives. Individual tires vary widely around that figure, which is what the ranking on this page measures.
Which tire has the most reports of blowout or sudden deflation?
Ranked by rate rather than raw volume, the Michelin XRV sits highest: 60 of its written reports describe it, 79% of that subject's narratives, about 3.9× the corpus rate. Complaint volume also tracks sales volume, so rate is the fairer comparison.
Does a high rate here mean the tire is defective?
No. NHTSA does not verify complaints, and a report is one owner's account. A high rate means owners of that tire describe this failure more often than owners of tires generally; a signal worth knowing before you buy, not a finding of defect.

Sources

Last verified 2026-10-07 against the sources below.

  1. NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation; owner complaints dataset (unverified owner reports, US federal government work, public domain).
  2. NHTSA Recalls database, nhtsa.gov/recalls.
  3. Corpus baselines computed over 58,390 complaint narratives longer than 200 characters.