How likely is it for something bad to happen to all tires of a car to make them fail ~2 years later?

Question

What are the chances that 2 tire failures in a few hundred miles are connected to something that happened to the car, rather than just unlucky?

I purchased a car from an repossession/police auction with no history 18 months ago. In the last 6 months I have driven only about 500 miles, less than 200 of those at highway speeds. In those 200 miles I have had two tire failures. In both cases it was a while before I was able to stop so the tire was damaged enough that the initial cause is not obvious. I still have it as I write this so could look for any signs if instructed.

With two failures in such a low number of miles I am concerned that it may be a problem with all the tires, and perhaps I should change the remaining tires the car came with.

I no longer have the first failed tire, the one that has just gone was made in 2020, so it is not a question of age. There is one other tire on the car that matches the failed tire.

Is there something likely that could have happened to all the tires on a car that could cause multiple of them to start failing 18 months or more later? If it was something that is plausible to have happened in the bankruptcy/repossession/police system then that would make it more likely.

The general question is should I change the remaining three tires to avoid the risk that something happened to them, or just change the one that failed again?

Answer 1

Unless you can provide a cause of failure, any answer would be an opinion-based guess.

If they failed for the same reason and they are all the same brand and date code and the failure was something like belt separation -- a manufacturing defect -- then yes, you may have a set of stinkers that should all be replaced.

You can check for tire recalls at https://recallinfo.ustires.org/ or at https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls

If the failure was from a road hazard of some kind -- puncture or impact -- then there would be no reason to blame it on bad tires and replace all of them.

Answer 2

It's impossible to say what the cause was, for many reasons. Many of these reasons stem from the fact you have background on the car. Cars get repoed because the people don't pay up, either because they can't or won't, which means they are much less likely to have properly maintained their car. Seized cars are also less likely to have been invested in properly, and who knows what mistreatment the car and its tires may have had.

So, from a pure risk point of view there's a high likelihood of another tire failure, and a high potential impact, so a high risk. It would make good sense to replace all 4 tires, and have someone check the safety critical systems on the car, like brakes.