TRX's - Rated PG-13 (For Penetration References)

Reply #45 – August 29, 2008, 08:07:13 AM

There were at least two accidents locally since I finished trade school involving tire beads coming apart. Both were during the tire mounting process. One was fatal. The other resulted in serious injury (and also blew the clothes off the guy; he was standing dazed in the Toyota shop he worked, naked). The fatal one was from a guy mounting a 16" tire on a 16.5" rim (which is essentially the same as mounting a 15" tire on a TRX wheel). He was decapitated. The non-fatal one was from a faulty (cheap Chinese) tire. I actually knew the guy that was in the non-fatal one, I went to high school with him - he was the guy that showed up to school the first day in the '56 Dodge the day I showed up in my '66 Galaxie thinking I was gonna be the only one there with a classic car. His Dodge was older, but my Ford was nicer :hick:

There is no way in hell I would ever try to stretch a tire's bead over the wrong sized rim. Probably 90% of the danger is for the installer (because usually if it's going to blow, it will blow while seating the beads), and 10% is on the car operator and everyone he shares the road with (because if the beads didn't blow while mounting the tire they were certainly weakened and could go at any moment).

"I've gotten away with it before" could be the last words of many a preventable accident...