2023 Volkswagen Arteon

Tire is 245/35 R 20. Tire sidewall blew out on a small bump/pothole at less than 15mph, losing all pressure and forcing to be towed. These are OEM tires with less than 2500 miles on them. Model is on backorder, so all new tires for vehicle had to be replaced. These tires are a known issue for the VW Arteon and customers are forced to pay for replacements at significant cost to "upgrade" to safer more well-built tires.

This tire model, Continental ProContact TX 245/35 R 20 95H, is the tire that came with my brand new 2023 Arteon and appears to be the overall stock tire VW went with. I had read in media forums that the tires blow out very easily when running over a pothole and it turns out, they were correct. I have now had 3 tires blow out due to potholes in just 7 months of owning my car. All punctures occurred on the wall of the tire resulting in necessary full tire replacements costing about $320 each tire. Although 2 were the result of hitting the same pothole in the night rain, resulting in getting towed from the side of the freeway, I've luckily been able to walk away from the situations safely. I now drive with the habit of overly scanning the road ahead of me, swerving every pothole, big or small to prevent another blowout.

The sidewall of tire failed after brushing up against an uneven section of pavement at low speed (5-10mph) as I was making a right hand turn onto a busy road. The low tire pressure light almost immediately illuminated. I had purcahsed the vehicle only 10 days prior with 4,169 miles on it. The previous owner also had a tire failure around 3,000 according to the vehicle's CarFax report. Numerous other Arteon owners have reported higher than typical tire failures with this original tire 245/35R20. It seems the sidewall is exceptionally fragile. Out of fear this would happen again anyday, I immediately ordered and replaced all 5 tires with a known quality tire. In 17 years of driving vehicles with low profile tires, I have never had a failure nor have I seen so many examples of failure in the vehicle's community that I was a part of.

Tire info: Continental Procontact Size: 245 / 35 R 20 I was driving on city streets at normal speed during a rainy day. I turned right from one road to another road, and as I started to accelerate out of the right turn, my driver side front tire blew out and the TPMS started screaming because it read the tire pressure as 0. I immediately pulled over and checked the tire and saw a huge gash on the side wall, close to the rim. The road I was on was not pristine or super smooth, but it did NOT have any large bumps or potholes and I wasn't going that fast to begin with. I have only had this car for a couple of months and it only has approximately 1,000 miles on it. If this had happened at highway speeds I think it would have been much more dangerous. I had to call roadside assistance to change the tire for me. The tire that blew out is completely unusable now and the wheel is also damaged, presumably because I had to drive it a short distance so I could park safely and have the tire change in a safe spot. The tires are the factory default that came with the brand-new car. I should note that AFTER this incident, I went home and started researching online and very easily saw that there are MANY VW Arteon owners whose cars with the same 20" Continental tires have also been experiencing blowouts, often multiple times and for no good reason, and have not been able to get any meaningful response from VW or Continental. So this is not an isolated problem and I believe the government should investigate and make the companies do right by their customers affected by this safety defect in their products.

Was switching out the "summer" tires for winter tires and noticed a bubble on the sidewall of the passenger front tire. At the time the car had around 3,000 miles on it. I switched to my spare tire, did not put the bubbled tire back on the car. I had traveled who knows how many miles with that tire like that. If I would have had a blow out, which would have happened at some point it would have been dangerous for me and any vehicle around me. It would have also destroyed a $700 rim, which I would have had to pay for. I replaced all 5 tires with new ones and the bubbled tire was disposed of, but I do have a picture. Cost of 5 new tires was $1600, since Dealer would not help out. Dealer denied and tire failures but mentioned that if they owned those tires they would switch them immediately. Discount tire inspected the tire and said that it was not in good shape. There were no prior symptoms to the bubble.

Tire size 245/35 R20 Found a large bulge in the sidewall nearing a burst. I have not hit any significant potholes or had any impacts of any sort. Luckily I found this before it blew out. There are a MASSIVE number of reported problems with this specific tire on my car (VW Arteon), with some people reporting up to 5 damaged tires within a year and many blowouts reported. When these fully blow out, they put me and the public at risk due to possible loss of control of the vehicle. I am reporting this to the dealer this week. There were no warnings and I did not feel anything unusual driving. Although there are tons of separate people reporting this same issue on social media, there are two threads clearly showing tons of people having the same problem on this forum since 2022: [XXX] [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)