I'm not a big fan of driving my RWD beast during Ohio winters so I generally leave it garaged from about November to March. But I've never put it up on stands or anything like that.

It's a 99 with about 28K miles and until just recently, the original tires (Goodyear Eagle F1 275/40/17). About a month or two ago I suddenly had a leak on the front drivers side tire. The leak was coming from a small crack where the tread transitions into the sidewall. My other front tire had a nail in it so I bought two new tires and had them put on the rear and moved the rears to the front.

Yesterday, as I'm leaving from work, I noticed I had another flat on the drivers side front. Guess what? Another crack near the sidewall.

Both tires that cracked were still in pretty good shape with a fair amount of tread left. Could I have created this cracking problem myself by letting the car sit during the winter without jacking it up? Or is there something else that could have contributed to this?

Thanks,
SP

 

Same thing happened to my SS and to my friends WS6.....I think its a deffect in design myself....almost seems like dry rot. I took my tires off at 23K miles and replaced them with BF Goodrich KDW's.