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THE MECHANIC AT MITSUBISHI SAID I'M NOT LEAKING AIR SO I SHOULD BE OK...what do you think? I asked to buy one tire because sadly that's all I could afford right now on short notice and he says no, due to the tread being as low as it is on all tires. I'm not sure if I can make it back home to California. About 2000 miles from where I am now. How bad is to bad in this situation and what can i do? Can I band-aid this situation?

I can't be 100% but it might have happened parking since the rim was just slightly scratched up in the same spot. Nothing major to rim

Lynn Crumbling
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brandon
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I really wouldn't be doing any distance on that - it's impossible to tell how deep that goes but what I can see shows it going way deeper than I would consider safe. 5 miles down the road to the dealer is one thing - 2,000 miles is another thing entirely!

You aren't losing air now - but that doesn't mean it's okay. A deep gash like that getting subjected to high loads, shocks, and bumps could easily tear open - and then you're going to lose all that air in a hurry, and if you're doing any thing approaching highway speeds it's going to be unpleasant. Potentially the "lose control and die a horrible fiery death" kind of unpleasant.

Given the car is 2WD there's nothing mechanically wrong with swapping the front tires to the back and replacing just the damaged one. There's no differential at the rear for it to cause problems to, it might upset the stability control but I'd be surprised.

It's not ideal - ideally tires should be replaced in pairs across the axle but if it were a case of doing it to get you home and then replacing the other side as soon as funds allowed then I'd do that in a heartbeat!

motosubatsu
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Don't know where you are, but there are generally used tire places around where you can get one decent tire for relatively cheap. Not sure I'd drive 2000 miles at highway speeds on the tire pictured. If nothing else, put the bad tire on the back axle.

Tim Nevins
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Can’t tell how deep that goes, but replace it as you want to drive a significant distance and as you said the tread is low.

Solar Mike
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