Well, for all those curious, this is what happens when a tire blows doing 80. I was crusin' up I75 northbound headed the lake swapping off between about 75 and 100mph depending on traffic. When I hit the highway I noted a slight variation as times previously driven on the highway, this one was a little less...steady. I figured, knowing the alignment was slightly out, it was all alright. With my two-car-crew behind me journeyed on...I slowed to about 60 when I noticed a decently bad wobble and thought maybe a tire had somehow managed a speed wobble. I punched it up to 80 with no better of a response from the car. I started to brake and slowly get over and managed to get in the far right lane. I said no more to my friends than "somethin' DEFINITLY isn't..." and then it blew. Luckily there was no one in the lane beside me and at just under 80 it took a violent jump to the left and I managed (luckily I had a firm grip in the one hand with the other on the shifter) to pull it right and off in the emergency lane as I watch the fender fold up and over the hood followed by much smoke and sparks as even the lightest touch of the brake locked the bare metal up on the ground with no control. The next morning, I got back to the car to pick it up. The friendly georgia state patrol was kind enough to acknowledge my misfortune and leave me a bright decal for the back window, at which I most notice those are the hardest stickers or post-its I have EVER taken off a window. Once I hobbled the car about 10 miles on a half-flat spare, I pumped it up and continued the rest of the 10 miles to Discount-tire, where I get my stock tires. Needless to say I walked in with a tire of which lacked the tread which had previously peeled away (I must note these were goodyear "buddy club" tires of which before the incident had about 30% on them) and metal spines stuck out in the full circumference with a gaping hole in the side. Looking at the guy with half-anger half-laughter (because if I didn't laugh I would have decked the guy, being the same one who sold me the tire because as everyone knows it's NEVER your own fault *winks*) and said "Sir IIIIII...need a new tire." With laughter he said "I can see that". This is what remains of the side (more pictures to come) after the tire had been replaced. Luckily, no one was injured except for removing a piece of white metal out of the body of the Mx3 following me. Parts damaged:
Driver's door
Driver's fender
Front left bumper signal
Front left corner light
Lining for driver's door
Hood-release cable (speak of, anyone know how I can open my hood now that the cable is...gone? Or where I can get a new one? Or how much of a bitch it is to re-run this cable?)
13" O.E.M. Rim
13" GoodYear "Buddy Club" tire
Front bumper to be re-mounted and driver's side clip to be replaced
Alignment, front end only

Pictures are below to anyone intersted. And any help in that hood cable would be appreciated. Remember ya'll, always be careful, always watch for warning signs (and obey them...) and be safe in what you do. This could have ended much worse and to anyone who's experienced it, it's scary as hell. Amateur drivers especially, be careful while you're out there and stay in control...

 

Pics no worky.

 

Technical difficulties, gimmee an hour to have 'em up...

 

Lemmee try this again...

 

Trial 3...these WILL come up...

 

 

Ouch!

 

Read below for how this type of thing actually occurs and a one-on-one on what actually goes on... otherwise skip over this cuz it'll all be a history lesson...

HyperMobileSonic: what i dont get is
REBELRamRacer360: ?
HyperMobileSonic: (obviously me being very car illeterate)
HyperMobileSonic: your car tire blew out... how did it do all that damage?
REBELRamRacer360: Umm...do you know what "de-treading" a tire is? Like that recall BFGoodrich had on all it's tires on the ford explorer about 2 years ago?
HyperMobileSonic: can't say I do
REBELRamRacer360: Hold on, let me find some expample
REBELRamRacer360: http://www.tiredefects.com/con...t.htm go there and check the images
REBELRamRacer360: Better understanding?
HyperMobileSonic: ok well that explains why the tire went out
HyperMobileSonic: but what i'm wondering is
HyperMobileSonic: that whole side of the car got trashed
HyperMobileSonic: like a car clipped it or something
REBELRamRacer360: Well...let explain...
REBELRamRacer360: Ok a tire is basically a bicycle tire, you've seen those?
REBELRamRacer360: How there's a tube and then tire?
HyperMobileSonic: kinda yeah
REBELRamRacer360: Ok well the tube goes in the tire, correct?
HyperMobileSonic: k
REBELRamRacer360: Basically, the tube's job is to hold air, and the tread's job is to stick the the road, but neither can do the other's job correctly...
REBELRamRacer360: So basically a car tire is almost like you'd take a bike's inner tube and glue it to the inside of the tire (being the tread)
REBELRamRacer360: Got it?
HyperMobileSonic: k
REBELRamRacer360: Aight so...
REBELRamRacer360: As I was going down the road, for whatever unexplained reason, the tread came off...however it doesn't all just rip off immediately at once. The tread seperates from itself much as if you were to take scissors to a bicycle tire...
REBELRamRacer360: And where the tread is "cut", it literally peels away from the innertube
REBELRamRacer360: again, the whole tread doesn't peel off immediately, so basically you have a bigass piece of thick, dense, and strong rubber slinging off a tire's centrifigul force and slapping around at the inside of the car where the tire is located
REBELRamRacer360: While hitting other things, it'd be much like me throwing a brick at you from about 5ft as hard as I could...maybe even a little more force than that...
HyperMobileSonic: yeah and you at the speed you go
HyperMobileSonic: that makes more sense
REBELRamRacer360: So as you can imagine it hits things pretty hard to knock them around, and because the rubber is SOMEWHAT sticky towards whatever it touches, it basically wraps around whatever it hit and yanks it off with intense amounts of force
REBELRamRacer360: Therefore, (if you see it in person you'll have a better understanding) when it hit the back bottom side of that fender it wrapped around it, and yanked it up and forward. So now pretty much my fender sits inside out and the back is where the front should be
REBELRamRacer360: As the tread peels off the tire while it's spinning (which it takes about 5revolutions of the wheel to completely peel it off) the tread has a longer reach on what it can grasp
REBELRamRacer360: When the tread finall releases, momentum has the tread spinning in a circle in a forward motion. The side of this "circle" rubbed along my driver's side door which snapped off the plastic trim, and left it's mark and left it's dents
REBELRamRacer360: Make sense?
HyperMobileSonic: yeah
REBELRamRacer360: That's why it's so deadly when an 18wheeler's tire de-treads...because my tire is a 13" and did that much damage...imagine what one of those, which is about 25-30inches I think? Can do to anything near it? Also keep in mind that that tire has more weight, which ='s more momentum...
HyperMobileSonic: yeah seriously
HyperMobileSonic: i better stay indoors for the rest of my life away from the hazards of the world
REBELRamRacer360: Not to mention the parts from an 18wheeler that it takes with it...such as my mom and I were cruising down the interstate behind an 18 wheeler when it did it, and to put it in perspective, a cro-bar went straight up and into the oil pan of the van...
HyperMobileSonic: crazy
REBELRamRacer360: Eh...just phsyics being a bitch
HyperMobileSonic: yeah I love it
HyperMobileSonic: anyway thanks for the car lesson
HyperMobileSonic: i'm off to bed
REBELRamRacer360: Also, something you should know about tires...
HyperMobileSonic: what's that
REBELRamRacer360: Tires on cars have metal bands in them...these are called radials
REBELRamRacer360: When a tread comes off, it has thousands of...well, basically needles sticking out all over the tire and tread, which can also do some SERIOUS damage
HyperMobileSonic: crazy
HyperMobileSonic: i couldn't begin to imagine
REBELRamRacer360: All in fun physics
REBELRamRacer360: G'night man