NAZTY97

I recently bought a set of Sumitomo HTR-Z2,... awesome tires to replace those Nitto Extreme 555's. Well, life would have it, I was rollin' from a beautiful day of working on some townhomes ( not that many beautiful days in houston - rains too much ),.. but anyways,... 11 miles from home, and I notice a little wobble wobble in my ride,.. pull over, FLAT TIRE! It's 7:20pm,... NT&B is only 4 miles away,... I call road side assistance to see if I can get my car there by 8pm before they close,... after hassle and hell, the tow truck guy gets there and we get there at 8:10, and the people there waited for me, which was cool. We unload the SC4,.. peel the tire, big gaping hole in the bottom, inside sidewall torn to hell,.. so not repairable,... so I'm like no big deal.... lets replace it,...well since Sears sold NT&B, they no longer carry Sumitomo and have to special order the tire,... so despite their computer systems showing tires elsewhere, no luck in attaining one, so the SC4 had to spend the nite there, I had to get a ride home, and this morning I get told I need to replace all 4 tires with another brand more accessible, and so on and so forth,... thus $313 outta my pocket over a damn blowout!!! PLUS I'm at home not finishing my project ( not makin' any money ).... ain't thatt'a biaaaa -ch!

mmarshall

You didn't mention whether it was a front or rear tire that failed. You did mention that you had replacement tires and wheels, presumably a non-factory size. On a rear-drive car like the SC400, if a front tire blows and you put the factory spare on.......no big deal, even if the two front wheel and tire sizes don't match. The two front wheels just roll freely, and it might pull a little in one direction, but that's no problem if you drive slowly and for just a short distance to the shop. If a back tire fails, that may be another story....depending on just what kind of differential you got, it could put some stress on it if you got different size wheels and tires on each side. But again, if you go slowly and for just a short distance, you probably won't do any damage. So you probably could have used the factory spare for just a short ride. Then your only problem would have been getting another Sumitomo...but, of course, that's another story.
I'm sorry this had to happen to you.....I know it can be a pain in the ***, and I'm glad it worked out for you even if it lightened your wallet a bit. But that's one of the chances you take when you toss out the factory stuff and go to hard-to-find aftermarket gear.
Just by chance....did you have the road-hazard warranty on the Sumitomos?....(that usualy costs extra). If you did, the company just might owe you at least some kind of reimbursement.