BMW M5 Touring Crashes From Flat Tire At 180 Km/h - 112 Mph

Saturday, October 20, 2007 | 6 comments » Categories | , , | Bookmark and Share

A member of the Swedish forum “M5board” who goes by the alias “Balazs” posted a set of images from a serious car crash he had in his M5 Touring this past July. According to Balazs, the accident occurred on the autobahn when he was travelling at about 180 km/h or 112 mph. After hearing a loud bang from the right side, the car went out of control spinning sideways at 140 km/h or 87 mph. It hit the roadside barrier several times before flipping over two times and coming to a halt. -Continued after the jump

Luckily, neither Balazs, his wife or his 7-month-old daughter that were on board that day got hurt (not even a scratch!). The police reported that the accident was caused by a puncture to the rear right tyre. Although the Bimmer was fitted with a TPM system (Tire Pressure Management), according to Balazs, the system never gave any warning whatsoever.







Via: M5board


6 comments

  1. Anonymous // October 20, 2007  

    How would the tyre pressure monitor have helped? M5's are not supplied with run flat tyres, so by the time the light has come on you have lost control anyway.....

  2. Mark // October 22, 2007  

    Answer for anonymous.

    The predominant cause of tire failure at speed is an overheated tire, almost always caused by low tire pressure which causes the side wall to flex excessively. This excessive side wall flex increases the tire's heat tremendously. Eventually this can lead to sudden failure (see Ford Explorer fiasco--tires with too little pressure carrying a heavy, top-heavy vehicle is a recipe for disaster).

    The _lack_ of a low tire pressure warning suggests that the tire was, most likely, at the proper pressure. Thus, the tire may have suffered a catastrophic failure due to a construction fault (more likely?) or a road hazard (less likely, judging by his comments).

    Regardless, I hope the tire was retained for an intensive inspection to see why it failed.

    More importantly, I hope the EU has a defect reporting system to capture this important data point. This is probably not the only tire that's failed. The important questions are how many tires have failed, under what conditions, and is a trend developing?

  3. Tristan // October 24, 2007  

    It's amazing that someone can have enough MONEY to buy an M5 Touring...but not enough SENSE to check the tire pressure.

    I guess if flames were shooting out of the engine he'd sit there pointing at the dash saying, "BUT THERE'S NO WARNING LIGHT!!!"

  4. adeak // October 25, 2007  

    Tristan! You wouldnt have written so much bullshit if you have ever had an accident like that. Accidents like that happen in the fragment of a second and you cannot do anything.

    The fact that you are a dog in the manger is just funny, because you are blaming him that he didnt check the tire pressure. If you ever will experience an accident like that you might understand what I was talking about here....

  5. Anonymous // October 25, 2007  

    If you go to the original thread posting: http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=105776

    and actually read, you'll find that this is a direct quote of the original poster: "Police and tyre experts later confirmed the accident was caused by a puncture to the rear right tyre. A tiny little hole, that let the air out slowly, then the inside of the rim cut through the tyre, that's when all the pressure was lost suddenly. TPM did not give any warning whatsoever though and the car did not behave in any strange ways beforehand!!"

  6. Anonymous // October 25, 2007  

    I am very glad to hear that your M5 Touring (Despite the failed tire) did protect you and your family and you were able to walk away without a scratch. I too understand that a blowout could happen to the best of us. I've seen it happen to race car drivers who have entire pit crews. Anyway, thank God once again that you are all safe...

    ~ Slim ~

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