On 6/12/2022, minutes after exiting 45 miles of highway driving, I parked the car. Less than 90 seconds after parking, the left front tire experienced an explosive loss of air pressure. An approx 2" x 1-1/2" piece of the sidewall near the tread was missing, and the reinforcing belt inside the tire was torn. It was the inside (engine side) sidewall. There was no apparent damage from any road hazard that could have contributed to the failure. Could not find the missing sidewall section. The General Altimax 235/65R16 103T tires were purchased new on 6/1/2022 with 200,583 miles on the vehicle. Failure occurred at 217,525 miles. The tire was replaced by the original seller (Belle Tire, New Hudson, MI), who now have the tire. They also inspected for previous damage and found none. Availability for inspection unknown. Belle Tire reps indicate that this is a very unusual failure and will be reporting to manufacturer. No other entities have inspected the failed tire. No warnings/symptoms present prior to the explosion. The DOT number on the failed tire is 6546 WBMH. It is notable that the other 3 identical tires on the vehicle have four additional digits (e.g. 6546 WMBH 0421) following the letter code, which Belle Tire said was the manufacture date of the tire. (0421 would be the 4th week of 2021). The failed tire lacked this information. Obviously, my wife and I were very lucky that this failure did not occur while driving on the highway as it almost certainly would have resulted in a loss of control at high speed.

- New Hudson, MI, USA