So I was driving back home, and I heard this loud hissing noise. I looked and saw my tire was deflating! I put some air in with a portable air compressor and tried driving to the nearest discount tire. The tire had a bubble in it! About half way to discount I heard the loud popping sound and my tire blew. Any idea why this happened?

 

In a nutshell:

Low tire pressure ---> Generates more Heat ---> Tire kaboom.

 

How old was this tire?

 

No clue. Just got the car last week. Treads were very deep, and still had the colored dots they usually put on new tires. Vehicle has 46,000 miles.

 

bubble could be manufacturer defect...either that or you hit a pot hole or a bump or something. the impact can cause a bubble...

p.s. next time your air is hissing stop, put your spare on...that was dumb of you to fill it up and drive on it. things coulda been much much worse

 

Pretty unusual to have a manufacturing defect, but it happens. Likely the PO had just not maintained the tires properly.

 

+1 Underinflation is the most common cause of tire failure. Since you just got the car and don't know its history, I'd advise you to get it inspected to make sure there are no other surprises lurking. If the previous owner had one tire underinflated, then chances are all of them were.

 

Correct. The additional pressure will find the weakest place in the tire to escape.

 

Thanks!

 

Since the tire appeared new, some of the causes of the hissing leading to underinflation:

1] bad tire (though, nowadays, it's unlikely like mentioned somewhere above)
2] bad mounting
3] bad valve stem or installation of valve stem
4] ran over something
5] vengeful ex

I had a similar thing happen with the popping sound couple years back. I was on the freeway and heard a couple of pops then the TPMS came on. I quickly pulled over and changed to my spare. Luckily, the tire didn't explode.

 

In addition to the possibility of having hit a pot hole to cause a bubble, I've seen bubbles form after tires were dismounted and remounted from strain caused on the machine.

 

I did remount after changing the breaks, but I've never had the problem of tires bubbling. This is my third car, and I have never have this happen to me

 

I dismount/flip/remount a lot of tires, too, and it's only happened once. It's still possible. When you get the tire discounted, see if you can see any stress in the tire in the area that the bubble formed.