First of all, I must say that a tire flat is a completely random event, and that is a fact of the driving life. I have had my share. Usually one or at most two per year.

However........
My HCH has just over 3,600 miles. Yet, in that surprisingly short time, I have had three flat tires.

Is it just a streak of bad luck, or is the tire design at fault?

I know that low-rolling resitance tires have some sidewall changes compared to "standard" radial tires, but I don't know if this could be a plausible reason?

Thoughts?

Sounds like a streak of bad luck. Was it the new tire or 3 seperate original tires? If it was the 3 seperate original tires than your may have a bad batch. When you say "flats" did they blow?

'00 Insight "Wazabi" -75,000+ miles
'03 Toyota Matrix - 81,000+ miles
'03 HCH-CVT-OSBM-41,000+ miles (retired 04-10-06)
"I'm very secure with my little Insight, no Prius envy here."

At 34,000 miles I've had no flats on my tires.

My hydroponics experiment

You ever notice how hard it is to lip read cartoon characters?
"Crazy is what the sane call Delta Flyer"

Hi Fernando_G:

___Bad luck pure and simple unfortunately … I know of a few Insighter’s using its stock OEM, extremely LRR, pressed up to 50 + #’s, who have gone well over 50,000 miles let alone Rick Reese who is at 130,000 miles and still has at least one OEM still on his car! I know I am not talking about the Bridgestone and Dunlop’s of the HCH but the same discussion applies.

___By chance does your commute take you though an area with a lot of construction of homes, highways, or buildings etc.? Road debris around such areas could be a cause of continuous flats. A bent rim could also cause a tire to go flat due to incomplete seating of the tire bead to the rim but the tire place you have had your HCH serviced at should have spotted that in a millisecond. Ask them next time just in case they have a new guy at the rack un-installing and re-installing tires … He should have found the piece of debris that made your tire go flat as it (whatever it is) is usually still stuck in the tire when they repair it. The will usually show you what you ran over and where in the tire they found it.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

Twice one tire, then another tire.

No, they did not blow. I actually felt the tugging that one feels when a tire is losing pressure. Always drove safely out of the freeway, in one instance over 5 miles.

Guess that you are right, it may be just bad luck.

Ahhh, that's better. Here's how I got my flat. It was a nail, oddly enough I didn't really feel it then I stopped at a Wal Mart after I had been driving about 60 miles. When I came out I always do a walk around of my car (don't ask). I noticed a flat tire. I changed it and noticed the nail. By my uneven severe wear I must of driven a ways with it very low. Had it patched since I still had tread, it's been fine since.

'00 Insight "Wazabi" -75,000+ miles
'03 Toyota Matrix - 81,000+ miles
'03 HCH-CVT-OSBM-41,000+ miles (retired 04-10-06)
"I'm very secure with my little Insight, no Prius envy here."

Strange, I just had a flat with my Dunlop tires. My HCH has around 9000 miles, and I just returned from a cross country trip. I left my office, noticed a bit more noise from the back than usual, but the car handled fine, so I didn't think anything of it. I stopped for gas and noticed the tire was flat. When I put air in it, a bulge appeared on the tire, and it deflated again after a few minutes.

I'm not sure why it went flat, but it seemed defective to me. The folks at the tire store told me those models of Dunlops are hard to come by apart from the dealership, so I ended up with a Yokohama instead. Seems awful early in a car's life to have a flat tire.