Imagine you wake up one fine morning, and your car’s tire goes flat overnight without any apparent reason. You might have become a victim of slashing or someone’s vandalism. Let’s learn how to tell if your tire was slashed.
Although it is hard to tell the difference, you can have an idea from the kind of slash on the tire. Observe, if the cut is smooth and straight and is located on the side of the tire, it must be someone taking revenge on you.
Some people even use their nails or a screwdriver to cause damage to the tires also, which mostly happens when they are deliberately trying to tease you.
Well, here are some of the ways to tell if someone slashed your tire on purpose:
How to tell If Your Tire Was Slashed
The damaged area
Mostly it is the sidewall which is an easy target if someone wants to slash the tire. Since the sidewall is comparatively softer and is exposed, it is easier for the perpetrators to target the area.
On the contrary, the tread area of the tires is a far think, and it would take a heavy log of wood to pierce through this area. They commonly use any sharp thing like a knife or a screwdriver to prick the sidewalk, as the sidewall is the thinnest part of the tire.
If you have not traveled to an off-road track or a road full of debris and did not even hit a pothole and still your tire has gone flat, you have good reason to believe that someone slashed the tire.
The appearance of the wound
Although it is an uphill task to differentiate between the wound caused by an accident or the rocky road and someone’s deliberate slashing, it is not impossible to investigate in any case.
If you use a bit of logic, you can strike a difference by the looks of the wound. For instance, a knife always cuts anything smoothly and straightly. On the other hand, a random scratch or a rock’s strike is primarily random and cannot be in a regular straight line.
Moreover, it may also be possible that the person attempting to slash the tire is not an expert or a professional. Therefore, it will be tough for an individual to do it on the very initial effort. As a result, there might be multiple lines of cuts on the sidewall of your tire. It gives you a reasonable idea that someone around you wants to damage your tire.
Search the surrounding area for a tool:
If someone is doing such a mean thing to you, they might be acting carelessly once they have committed the thing they want to. Yes, this is to say that you need to search the nearby areas to look for a tool like a blade or a knife which the criminal might have just thrown there just like that, out of a sense of excitement.
You might have heard some stories from people or have watched movies also that once the action is complete, the criminal throws the tool carelessly nearby.
Ask the people around
If you suspect an act of vandalism, try asking the people around in that area. Maybe someone had watched the incident. If that is the case and you manage to find a witness, you can file an initial Police Report.
Your best bet will be that you try to figure out who the criminal may be. You have to recall the potential people who might have held any grudge against you. Such people mostly take out grudges in these ways.
CCTV Footage
You can make good use of the latest technology in the neighborhood and can easily find a CCTV camera nearby as it is more of a necessity these days to track down criminal activities. You will look around for the camera, and after that, you may ask the owner of the CCTV camera to let you see the recent footage.
Although, you might have to convince the person because most people do not show the footage to everyone as it is their personal property. However, you can come up with some arguments, like if it has happened to you today, the same person may attempt to do something with his property. It will be a reasonable argument to make him cooperate with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
On what factor does the sound of a slashed tire depend?
The sound of a slashed tire largely depends on the size of the damage or slash. If it is a significant cut, your tire may also produce a gushing sound, followed by a giant popping sound. However, a small cut may only give out a zipper sound. If the criminal used a very sharp knife, the zipper sound might lead to a large burst of the tire.
How long does it take to deflate completely?
Slashing leads to deflation sooner or later. If the slash is big enough, your tire will deflate within seconds. Otherwise, it may take overnight for the tire to deflate completely. So, it also depends on the size of the cut.
Does the Insurance policy for vehicles cover the cost of slashed tires?
Well, it is all about the insurance policy you have. There is Basic Insurance which covers only bodily injuries, medical reasons, etc. The primary insurance will not cover the slashed tires because this does not come under this category.
Comprehensive insurance, on the other hand, mainly covers driving incidents. So, you can be safe only if you have a comprehensive insurance plan.
What happens when a tire gets slashed?
When a tire gets slashed, the damage sometimes is more than the tire itself. You can also have the rim of tire damage or the whole body of the tire damage that will restrict you from paying that deductible amount. So long as you have the proper coverage, it would help if you run into problems in filing your claim.
Conclusion
These are the ways to track down the incidence of slashing of your vehicle’s tires. Be careful if you have a negative relationship with your neighborhood. People mostly take out grudges in such mean ways and then enjoy the discomfort you might have suffered from.
I am an Automotive specialist. I graduated from Michigan with Bachelor in Automotive Engineering and Management. Also, I hold degrees in Electrical and Automation Engineering (BEng), Automatic and Industrial Electronic Engineering, and Automotive Technology. I have worked at General Motors Company for over five years as the Marketing Operations Production Coordinator. Now, I own my garage in Miami, Florida. I love cars and love to share everything about them with my readers. I am the founder of the Automotiveex blog, where I share everything about automotive, like car news, car mechanical issues, and anything else that comes up in my blog posts.
