Less than 24 hours after purchasing this Toyota 86, he crashed it thanks to a set of tires not sized and/or installed correctly.
Thinking of putting on a smaller tire on a wheel not made for that size? You probably shouldn’t. This Toyota 86 owner only had his brand new baby for less than 24 hours before he crashed it thanks to a set of improperly sized tires for his wheel size. Check out the unfortunate proof below.
Initially, this post got to me thanks to someone on “Rare Wheel Awareness” on Facebook warning members about the dangers of replica wheels, posting this unfortunate crash as proof of why you should ONLY buy “real wheels.” Unbeknownst to him, that Toyota 86 owner’s Instagram was still public and not only could we get up close shots of the damage, we also could see a before video of what his 86 looked like.
That Toyota 86 was not running on an OEM wheel and tire setup and was definitely running a tire smaller than what’s probably recommended for that wheel. That was more than enough proof for commenters to start pointing this out.
Here’s the before video. Notice that stretch on those tires?
According to the definitive article on tire sizing from MotoIQ,
“If a tire is too narrow for a given wheel width, the sidewall becomes overly preloaded and the carcass can distort to have uneven pressure across the surface of the tire. The preloaded sidewall also has greatly reduced flex and compliance, which would improve initial response, but it would ride poorly, be less forgiving over bumps, and the break-away characteristics would likely not be as predictable.”
That also means a tire can definitely come undone at the bead under driving conditions where that tire is experiencing high stress (cornering, canyon driving etc.)
And here is the unfortunate after picture.
True, the wheel split into a dozen pieces and maybe a real wheel wouldn’t have broken easily but if the original tire installer sized his tires correctly, this accident could’ve been avoided despite it being a replica wheel.
Take this as a cautionary tale mi gente. Size your tires according to your wheel sizes correctly. Don’t get that stretched look at the price of safety and certainly don’t buy a car with that kind of setup.
