Michelin Pro 3 Sidewall Hole

lochindaal

I have a pair of Pro 3's with just over 2000km use.

When out today whilst stationary there was a large bang and a I got puncture. There is a big hole in the sidewall of my tyre. It is about 0.5cm long and looks like a split pushed out the way (as if the sidewall has given up) rather than something having pushed into the tyre and made the hole.

A training partner had a problem recently with a hole in the sidewall of Pro 3's as well.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced problems before I order a new tyre or if I've just been unlucky?

ride_whenever

I've not had any issues with the pro3 other than the occasional flint puncturing, that's both on 23mm and 20mm :twisted:

Velonutter

Nope mine are brilliant, I run them at 110 on the rear and 105 on the front and have just changed them after 2000 hard miles

FransJacques

Another JRA thread, like the silly Vittoria one.

No tires are indestructable, especially in the UK. I've lived on 4 continents including a 1 year stint in Saudi. Surrey, Kent, Hampshire, greater London etc. have the worst average quality roads I've ridden. Roads here have very porous surfaces to deal with the rainfall - they have a matrix of rough stones on top to allow for drainange. It also makes riding here draggy but this is great for training.

One just eats tyres here, it's just the way it is. Save the Veloflexs for French or Swiss asphalt.

Lillywhite

lochindaal wrote:

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced problems before I order a new tyre or if I've just been unlucky?

When the Pro 3 Race first came out, in early 2008, my son brought a pair and within 4 weeks they had developed cracks on the side walls. They were referred to MichelinUK (through ProBIkeKit) and after a couple of months Michelin came up with a c-o-c-k and bull story that because he lived in Newcastle, approximately 5-6 miles from the coast, it was the salt in the atmosphere that caused the problem! :roll:
Obviously he didn't accept this and contested this and Michelin finally relented and sent him a replacement set after 6 months but didn't refund his postage which they had promised.

He had been using Michelin tyres for over 20 years but now won't touch their tyres with a barge pole after their poor customer service. :twisted:

lochindaal

@FransJaques. I didn't ask for a puncture proof tyre, I asked if anyone had problems with the sidewall of the tyre giving in. After checking on google I also found a few other comments with people having the same problem. Thanks for your help though :roll:

Due to this I'm not going to go with Pro 3's. Tried GP4000s before which was good but I thought wore very quickly.

Going to give the new SCHwalbe Ultemo R1 a try.

James_London

A riding buddy had a strange sidewall bulge on PR3s (orange version!) at the weekend. The tube didn't come through but the tyre was unusable.

Didn't the earlier Ultremos have a similar problem?

Lillywhite

These tyres don't seem particularly durable judging by comments on BikeRadar's review.

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/ ... tyre-31475

FransJacques

lochindaal wrote:

@FransJaques. I didn't ask for a puncture proof tyre, I asked if anyone had problems with the sidewall of the tyre giving in. After checking on google I also found a few other comments with people having the same problem. Thanks for your help though :roll:

Due to this I'm not going to go with Pro 3's. Tried GP4000s before which was good but I thought wore very quickly.

Going to give the new SCHwalbe Ultemo R1 a try.

I know what you meant but you're still coming with a JRA story and asking if it's normal. Of course it's not normal but it can happen to *any* tyre so just buy a new one if you like the feel of that tyre. Tyres, tubes, chains and brake blocks are consumables so there's no point philosophizing about why and what you can do to avoid in the future.
Of course you can buy Paselas or Bontrager Hardcases or Spec Armadillos but they all ride like plywood and life is too short for that. It's like putting Paula Radcliffe on wooden clogs.

For example at this weekend's Roubaix I know that I might get a tyre issue terminal to finishing the course - to mitigate I'm riding my ATACs with my MTB shoes so i can at least walk while waiting for the VdB (if there is one, I had better check).

BTW, you didn't tell us if your split was longitudinal or radial. If the former, there was a guy at work who bought a newTrek with DA 7900 where one of the rear bake pads was toed up too high and was digging into the sidewall. He went thru 2 PR3s before he asked me what was up. Brake pads ride up higher on the rim as blocks wear (esp with V brakes!) as the point in the arc where the arms reach is higher than with new brake blocks. Could this be happening to you?

wildmoustache

lochindaal wrote:

@FransJaques. I didn't ask for a puncture proof tyre, I asked if anyone had problems with the sidewall of the tyre giving in. After checking on google I also found a few other comments with people having the same problem. Thanks for your help though :roll:

Due to this I'm not going to go with Pro 3's. Tried GP4000s before which was good but I thought wore very quickly.

Going to give the new SCHwalbe Ultemo R1 a try.

You're riding race tyres there ... they aren't going to last that long. IF you ride race tyres you've got to have the funds for the habit ...

dennisn

wildmoustache wrote:

lochindaal wrote:

@FransJaques. I didn't ask for a puncture proof tyre, I asked if anyone had problems with the sidewall of the tyre giving in. After checking on google I also found a few other comments with people having the same problem. Thanks for your help though :roll:

Due to this I'm not going to go with Pro 3's. Tried GP4000s before which was good but I thought wore very quickly.

Going to give the new SCHwalbe Ultemo R1 a try.

You're riding race tyres there ... they aren't going to last that long. IF you ride race tyres you've got to have the funds for the habit ...

Couldn't agree more. You're riding a thin race tire on roads that your own countrymen refer to as "not as good as a poor 3rd. world country". Not trying to be an *sshole but how can you even begin to expect any less to happen. You're probably lucky you got as many miles as you have out of them. Then again if you have the "funds for the habit". I like that.

on-yer-bike

A friend had an inch split running parallel to and next to the rim. I have had a vertical cut in the sidewall. Before that I used for a year with no probs.

must-tri-harder

dont ride over fucking great big rocks !?!?!?!?!!!!!!!

like i did with a £35 vittoria open corsa evo cx, shit happens.

FransJacques

We really need a forum fatwa on any more "I broke my expensive tire, waaaaaaaah" threads. They break, stop complaining, either spend the money or STFU.

At least you can turn them into fun belts:http://thejailbreak.com/2010/02/10/bike-tire-belts/

You don't take up performance cycling to *save* money. That's called commuting and that calls for different equipment.

dennisn

FransJacques wrote:

We really need a forum fatwa on any more "I broke my expensive tire, waaaaaaaah" threads. They break, stop complaining, either spend the money or STFU.

At least you can turn them into fun belts:http://thejailbreak.com/2010/02/10/bike-tire-belts/

You don't take up performance cycling to *save* money. That's called commuting and that calls for different equipment.

Now THAT was very well put. +1

lochindaal

FransJacques wrote:
We really need a forum fatwa on any more "I broke my expensive tire, waaaaaaaah" threads. They break, stop complaining, either spend the money or STFU.

At least you can turn them into fun belts:http://thejailbreak.com/2010/02/10/bike-tire-belts/

You don't take up performance cycling to *save* money. That's called commuting and that calls for different equipment.


Now THAT was very well put. +1

You guys are missing the point of my original question (not complaint).

I know I am using race tyres, I know what they cost and I know they can get puntured.

What I wouldn't expect from a tyre is a hole to suddenly appear in the tyre sidewall whilst being stationary where it has just given way. That is not what I would call a normal failure mechanism (maybe that's just my engineering background to investigate). I can then make an informed decison on what to buy next.

If the best response you can offer is tyres cost lots of money, STFU why bother replying at all.

dennisn

lochindaal wrote:

FransJacques wrote:
We really need a forum fatwa on any more "I broke my expensive tire, waaaaaaaah" threads. They break, stop complaining, either spend the money or STFU.

At least you can turn them into fun belts:http://thejailbreak.com/2010/02/10/bike-tire-belts/

You don't take up performance cycling to *save* money. That's called commuting and that calls for different equipment.


Now THAT was very well put. +1

You guys are missing the point of my original question (not complaint).

I know I am using race tyres, I know what they cost and I know they can get puntured.

What I wouldn't expect from a tyre is a hole to suddenly appear in the tyre sidewall whilst being stationary where it has just given way. That is not what I would call a normal failure mechanism (maybe that's just my engineering background to investigate). I can then make an informed decison on what to buy next.

Let's go over this again. You're using, basically, paper thin tires on bad roads and you're wondering why something like this happens???? If you don't know why this happened how the h*ll do you expect anyone else to know???? I'll give you a hint. It got cut at some point in time, it's a thin walled tire and the cut weakened it, add in some road pounding over a bump or two, and bingo, blown tire. How can you not know this?

lochindaal

I don't think I have asked anywhere why it happened or asked anyone to explain it.

I just tried to find out if it was a common problem with this tyre to help me make an informed decision on my next purchase.

Anyway this is my last post

synchronicity

Are you absolutely sure it wasn't a wayward chainring tooth that caused it? :twisted:

flanners1

Two of my Pro3 tyres have done this on two seperate bikes over the last year Sidewall tears/splits/bulges call it what you will. I am sure quality control of the sidewall fibres are not 100%. Could of been unlucky but I am not so sure. No Contis fitted on the bikes GP or Force etc have replicated this. So I am with the OP!

Lillywhite

Flanners1 wrote:

I am sure quality control of the sidewall fibres are not 100%.

I agree. See my earlier post.

ADIHEAD

I had a spate of failures with PR3's last year. My brother also had 2 sidewall blowouts on descents. I genuinely believe they had a problem with certain batches, perhaps due to production being moved to Malaysia? If you read Roadbike review there's some very inconsistant reviews of them, condusive with sample variability. After my bad experiences I swapped to Vittoria Open Corsa's, which are supposed to be fragile and didn't get a single puncture in 1000 miles. I took them off due to not fancying a wet Sportive on them as there was some squaring and a lot of cuts. I put some Pro Race 3's back on (I had the front from the previous set, which was newer than the rear that had blown anyhow and got a new rear on the cheap to match) and since then they've been fine for 400miles, on some very bad roads at times! I know they're race tires but a couple of years ago I managed 2000mileson a set of GP4000's before a puncture. So to answer the original question, I think you may have had part of a bad batch.

FransJacques

Anecdotes regarding top-flight 200 gram "racing" tires are what they are - completely one off anecdotal.

Last weekend 40 riders did a 110 km ride over some not nice roads on the Isle of Wight. 10 bikes had Pr3s, I was the only person to flat, it was a PR3 which I have on the rear, I have a 4000s and it, areguably runs over the same stuff as the PR3 but it was fine. Was a thorn which was stull lodged in the tyre from a forest road we were on. But sheit happens and can happen with any brand or make. So the story means nothing, it's just a story of a flat. Before forums, no one discussed this stuff.

So draw conclusions carefully. For me, changing a flat is not a big deal, takes 5 mins (esp if a riding partner folds the dead tube while you pump), but more importantly, life is too short to ride on a tyre made of steel with a sidewall made of 1cm thick plywood. I love my riding time too much to deaden the feel. Skiers who have tried to ski on a dry slope will know what I am talking about.

chieflordy

I too have had a problem with PR3 tyres splitting along the sidewall. I had 2 split on me on my first ride on them last year.
Looking at the side wall afterwards there were thin diagonal lines and it was along these that both split. LBS agreed that there appeared to be a problem with manufacture and replaced them with GP4000s which i have had no problems with.