Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Help... A little BooBoo on the FWY

A little background:

Last tuesday my car was driving like crap. It felt like a I was on a gravel road while driving down the freeway. Well, I dropped off the person I was giving a ride to and was back on the freeway making my journey home. Well My car was still driving like crap. Everything was rattling, so i slowed down from 70 to 60. All of a sudden the car jumped, the courtesy light fell out and I heard a lound slamming sound from the back of the car. It felt like I went over a speed bump at Freeway speeds. When I pulled over I called for a flatbed. I thought my spring gave out because all I saw was my bumper popped out and the wheel well guard pushed into the tire. Upon further inspection there was some black marks on the bumper and the door. When the tow truck came the guy told me what happened. The tread came completely off my tire and smacked the crap out of the back of my car.

So there's the background. Sorry I dont have pics, it's not super bad but it hurts to see it . Anyhow, the tread seems to have broken the mounting piece that holds the bumper cover on. This is all on the rear passenger side BTW. Its just that edge by the wheel well and it just popped out. Anyone have any suggestions as to how to hook it back on? I'm thinking epoxy or some other strong adhesive.

-Rob

why did you call a flatbed...i would have just put on the spare. it sounds like you had a bubble in your tire. anyway: i would go to autozone (pep boys might be a better option) or your local stealership and buy new bumper mounts. its always better if these kind of jobs are done with OEM equipment. or you could go to home depot, buy some brackets and mounting clips and fashion one yourself.

You were lucky. Next time you know something is obviously wrong you might wanna consider checking it out before it goes "kaboom". It would've been a worse event if it'd happened on the front and in dense freeway traffic. Thunky / bumpy type things that change frequency with speed are almost always tire probs. Could be tread separation, flat or belt shifting (tire goes out of round). I've experienced all of the above at some point or other. Only once had it happen with very little warning (right front went kabloom at about 75 mph, < 10 sec of thunky noise before it exploded - tread separation). Most times you can notice something wrong, check it out & put spare on before anything really exciting happens.

Brent

Cool i didn't know you could get new mounts. I'll check that out.

As for the problem and not addressing it, i didn't know anything was wrong with the tire. the treads looked almost brand new. The tires themselves looked almost brand new. I was getting ready to replace the fronts because they wore pretty bad for some reason. Cheap tires i guess. But I thought it was a prob with the suspension. I've never had anything happen like that. Also the tire didn't blow out. I still drove on it fine. In fact, its still in my trunk with no leaks or anything, still pumped up. With missing the tread it looks like a super slick. The reason i called a flat bed though is because it was dark and all i could see was something in the wheel well and the bumper hanging off. I thought the spring broke and the car was down low, and not able to be towed by a regular tow truck.

Thanks again for the reply's guys

-Rob

ANyone interested in buying one slightly used "super slick"? LOL