GP4000SII Sidewall Blowout

[ceugene]

"These tires work fine in my limited experience" isn't really helpful to the many who do find GP4K sidewalls unacceptably thin or fragile.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDOiPZhS...-by=dorkeugene

Look familiar? Happened on a post-rain ride with a couple of stray pebbles strewn on the road surface. If GP4Ks were true race-day-only tires like Corsa Speeds or some Veloflex tires, I'd chalk it up to picking the wrong horse for the course.

[SPlKE]

I finally gave up on conti GP series after riding them from the 3000 series up through the 4000-II.

On the rides I do, they tended to be flat magnets.

I changed over to vred tri-comp variants.

About a year later, I reduced the number of spare tubes I carry from 2 to 1, and I should probably check that one for dry rot.

The change in durability between the conti gp 4000 tires and the vred tri-comp is that dramatic.

Plus, the vreds compound, where the rubber meets the road, is a lot stickier in corners than the conti tires. Comparing the two, the contis were hard and slippery in corners compared to the corner-on-rails vred tri-comps.

Just my experience. I'll never buy another overpriced, overrated (imho) conti bike tire.

When I hear horror stories like sidewall blowouts (well documented) at 40 mph, but then the person says "I'll continue to ride conti GP 4000" tires, I just scratch my head.


BTW, I had similar experiences with crappy durability and performance with my conti summer ultra performance tires on my GTI. I couldn't believe the improvement when I dumped the contis for Michelin Super Sport PS2 summer ultra performance tires.

I think conti is riding a wave of brand loyalty that has been undeserved for about 5 - 10 years.

[velodog]

I changed over to vred tri-comp variants.

About a year later, I reduced the number of spare tubes I carry from 2 to 1, and I should probably check that one for dry rot.


When I hear horror stories like sidewall blowouts (well documented) at 40 mph, but then the person says "I'll continue to ride conti GP 4000" tires, I just scratch my head.

Another fan of the Vreds.

And, yeah, I don't understand the loyalty to a tire with a sidewall that the owner expects to have sidewall issues with.

[woodys737]

We're talking about side wall cuts. Not natural wear or routine flat. Sounds like you are talking about wear and regular flats. No questions Vittoria corsa wears faster and probably flats easier.
The difference being you have to throw out a tires with a side wall cut not regular flats and longevity is something you can choose to accept or not before buying.

Yeah sorry I wasn't clear I guess. The Corsa had sidewall cuts. The Specialized Turbo was run o the mill flats running over dry leaves, puddles of water and the dreaded newly paved road. :-)

I'm with you otherwise. Just throwing out my experience as I think I log more than normal miles than average...

[woodys737]

Until this happened, I had never had a sidewall failure in over 40+ years of riding 2,000 mi/yr. I have ridden in the city, the country, and mostly in semi-rural Bucks/Hunterdon Counties. I can't say I inspected my tires the day of the blowout. This was a normal weeknight ride like hundreds of others, the only difference being the relatively new GP4000SII tires. I have been using other Continental tires and this was my first experience with this model. IMHO these tires too susceptible to catastrophic failure for me and I will go back to a more durable tire.

Not looking to argue but, I just disagree based on my riding over 1000 miles/month on average for years on these things. Matter of fact I don't recall a sidewall cut ever adn I feel like I put these through a pace that would pass any test.

With that said, I've had bad luck with other tires that many love and have had the opposite experience. Not sure what to say at this point but, I will stand behind the GP4Kii any day of the week. Good luck!

[aclinjury]

The conti sidewall issue is pretty well document on google. Take it for what it's worth, but to me it does mean something when google returns a lot of negative posts on it, lol.

My personal experience with contis is that it's sidewall does seem to start to show sign of fraying way before the middle of the tire has come close to wearing out its life. I ride mountains every weekend so that means a lot of heavy braking on the front wheel, and it's almost always the case that I would have to ditch a conti due to sidewall starting to show sign of fraying. Not about to risk my life on a descend by trying to extend its life by a few more hundred miles.

To be fair, Michilen Pro 4 and Schwable also show sign of fraying too, but those take on a lot more mileage before so. I've find that the Vittoria Corsa don't show fraying at all, yet the Vittoria is a thinner tire! So something about the sidewall construction of Vittoria that make it last. Vittoria also handle like a boss in fast corner. I now use Vittoria for the front.

[bmach]

mmsrepbike, how can you tell it is road damage? What are the clues the tell you the difference? I’m not doubting you but I have no idea what to look for and am just asking so I learn something. I know if they were my tires I might remember hitting something as a clue?

[fast ferd]

Supple? Not sure I ever heard anybody call these "supple," unless you ride them at 80psi. In my experience, riding at 100-105 psi, these rode rather harshly.
Like the OP, I suffered catastrophic sidewall failure from fairly wimpy "road hazards" within 500 miles on different rides. Put a dollar-bill boot in there to limp home. The sidewalls lack a mesh material like, say, a dollar bill. Tear easily as a result. Nothing of the sort with 50k of riding PR3 and 4's, which corner better and exhibit a supple ride.

[Migen21]

Some people just have better roads to ride on. The Conti sidewall issue is well documented. I don’t think our anecdotes are just noise.

Anecdotes are anecdotes - good or bad, correct?

I ride on good roads and bad roads, in the Pacific Northwest where it rains often, and the roads and shoulders are usually covered in various forms of debris most of the year. I'm also 6' 5" and 230lbs and average 10k miles a year. I would think I would be more prone to sidewall cuts than the average rider who is lighter, rides in places where the weather is better and the road conditions are not great.

The conti sidewall issue is pretty well document on google. Take it for what it's worth, but to me it does mean something when google returns a lot of negative posts on it, lol.

The Conti 4000 is one of, if not the most popular tire on the road. Just by sheer numbers there are going to be more anecdotal reports of failures than other tires.

[ceugene]

If the cuts were small, I’d be inclined to say it’s bad luck. If it wasn’t anecdotes from close friends with the exact same sidewall cuts, then again it might be bad luck. Unfortunately these are gaping tears in the sidewalls and they aren’t clean slashes... it’s actually the threads pulling apart. It also happens to enough people I know personally with just Conti tires and not other makes.

[Jay Strongbow]

A
The Conti 4000 is one of, if not the most popular tire on the road. Just by sheer numbers there are going to be more anecdotal reports of failures than other tires.

It's pretty much a fact the side walls cut easy on this tire compared to others.

When I blew out 3 in 100 miles (nice anecdote there), I saved the last one and did some experimenting with it but trying to cut the side wall by hand compared to some other Vittoria Corsas I had laying around.
The side walls are extremely thin and cut easy. That's a fact not an anecdote.

[Lombard]

The are discontinued though you could probably still find some. But the new Corsa has the same casing so theoretically flat protection should be the same. They wear quick. Soft rubber and not a lot of it. Not sure how the new rubber with graphine they use now wears.

Wear quick? As in how many miles between replacement? I get 3K miles out of a rear Maxxis Re-Fuse.

After cutting a pair of 200mi GP4K S IIs in this manner on the same ride (one blowout, one I noticed the cut later at home,) I decided to stop riding the tires. There’s too much cracked pavement, small twigs, random pebbles in my area for tires with such thin sidewalls. Oddly the Vittoria Corsa G+ I tried never suffered sidewall cuts,

but they had a tread life of about 1300mi on the roads here.

Deal breaker. I think I'll stick with my harsh but bombproof Re-Fuses for now.

[Lombard]

When I hear horror stories like sidewall blowouts (well documented) at 40 mph, but then the person says "I'll continue to ride conti GP 4000" tires, I just scratch my head.

^This^

I think conti is riding a wave of brand loyalty that has been undeserved for about 5 - 10 years.

It sure does appear that way.

[T K]

Anecdotal, operator error, supple, these are all terms used by those to defend the contis.
I've owned various Schwalbe, Michelin, Vittoria and Specialized tires. None of wich failed and some that were a much more supple ride than the Gp tires. My first set the rear side wall failed within a few hundred miles and the front failed around 500 mi. I would not buy again.
My new bike came with Conti 4 seasons that I think I'll leave on for this winter for base miles then change in the spring.

[T K]

[QUOTE=Migen21;5195230
The Conti 4000 is one of, if not the most popular tire on the road. Just by sheer numbers there are going to be more anecdotal reports of failures than other tires.[/QUOTE]
The problem with this argument is the people who have had failures have also owned and ridden thousands of miles on other tires without failure. And I doubt there are that many more Contis on the road than any other brand.

[11spd]

Yes and no.

Yes, it's road hazard damage. They are right.

Yes, the other person had the same thing happen to them as you did.

So have I, a few times, with the same tire.


Yes, this tire is known for having sidewall cuts/blowouts.

Yes, riding a different tire could help solve this problem for you.

No, you don't need to ride a different tire, you just need to pay attention better now.



What most likely happened, 99% of time when this happens, is you hit a piece of gravel.

Yup, that's all that happened, you hit a piece of gravel. A rock.

If you can manage to retrain yourself to pay better attention and avoid the rocks, you can keep riding this tire. If you cannot manage to do that, you should switch to a different tire. Maybe the 4 seasons.


I know how frustrating and scary it is, it's happened to me over 40mph on the front wheel more than once. I continue to ride this tire though, for me it's the best tire on the market. I have hyper diligence about gravel. I've never punctured any other way besides a sidewall blowout on these tires in over... I don't even know... over 30k miles at least.

In bold, why I don't ride 'em.

[n2deep]

hey, whatever works for ya...

I'll be rolling on Conti 4KIIs tomorrow with no worries whatsoever.

Me Too!!! They're great tires!!

[Jay Strongbow]

Yeah sorry I wasn't clear I guess. The Corsa had sidewall cuts. The Specialized Turbo was run o the mill flats running over dry leaves, puddles of water and the dreaded newly paved road. :-)

I'm with you otherwise. Just throwing out my experience as I think I log more than normal miles than average...

Got ya.

[Speed_Metal]

if you're going to throw that tire away, can you send it to me.
I'll pay shipping.

[Kerry Irons]

I would not ride a tire that normal usage results in catastrophic failure.

Yeah, except that was obviously damage from hitting something on the road, not normal usage resulting in catastrophic failure.

[aclinjury]

To complicate matters about the Contis, here's what I've read about them. Here goes, and take it for what it's worth. Don't kill the messenger though!

big UK warehouse online sellers like Wiggle, Ribble, Probike Kit, Merlin, often will have deep discount on Contis. Maybe this is one reason why people keep coming back to them, however hesitant they might be. There were back and forth discussions that in the "user review" section of one of these site (I forget which one), and people were saying that these online sellers were selling really old tires, tires that have been in sitting in storage and showing signs of rotting. Others were saying that it's "B stock" tires, tires that came from batch that didn't pass QC test, but somehow made their ways to these online warehouses (knowingly or unknowingly to the warehouses even).

anyway personally, Contis to me suck for one major reason, they handle not as good as almost all other brands in the same price range. Contis have a few things going for them though:
1. they're on sale frequently
2. their middle section tread does last long, good if all you do is drone on flat road
3. good rolling resistance

but all these positives means jack to me if it's a poor handler, and a harsh ride. I'm thinking that the properties that give them good rolling resistance and longevity also necessarily make them poor handler and poor ride quality.

[SPlKE]

In bold, why I don't ride 'em.

Nailed it.

I wonder how many eXtreme Brand Loyal Conti customers have ever tried a different bike tire, even for just one tire change.

I was eXtreme Brand Loyal Conti GP series for years and years, until I tried a set of vred fortezza tri-comps on a whim. I've never even considered going back to conti GP series.

[duriel]

Yeah, except that was obviously damage from hitting something on the road, not normal usage resulting in catastrophic failure.

If he was normally riding in the road and he hit something, and he didn't remember hitting anything, I would consider all of that normal usage. And the tire failed.

Now, if he was normally riding in the road and he hit a knife or big sharp iron bar or something that he remembered, I would consider that abnormal.

[SPlKE]

If he was normally riding in the road and he hit something, and he didn't remember hitting anything, I would consider all of that normal usage. And the tire failed.

Now, if he was normally riding in the road and he hit a knife or big sharp iron bar or something that he remembered, I would consider that abnormal.

Ditto. The last thing I want to worry about on a fast descent is looking to identify and avoid every piece of gravel because the sidewall of my tire might fail if it comes in contact with an otherwise-unmemorable piece of gravel.

Potholes? Rocks? Squirrels? Broken road surface? Large sticks? Wet leaves? Broken glass? Roofing nails? Large patches of loose gravel? Yeah, I scan for those and avoid them. But I don't worry about a random piece of gravel destroying the sidewall of any Vreds I've ridden for the past 3 or 4 years.

[mfdemicco]

I cut three of them in about 100 miles.
I've never cut a Vittoria Pave or Corsa in 50,000 miles.

Some say those tires suck because of the sidewalls. Others say it's just bad luck and it would happen with any tire. You can guess which way I feel based on my experience.

Corsa? Yeah right. Most fragile tire I've ever used. Fit very loose on the rims too. Both front and rear tires died due to cuts before the tread wore out.