Hello
I haven't posted in quite some time but I thought I would relate an experience that happened to me recently. I have a 2012 A6 Prestige w/19 inch wheels, only 7K miles on a set of Goodyear Eagle F1 tires. On a freeway, speed about 75MPH left rear tire blew out. Very loud double bang. First was tire, second apparently was road debris that caused failure hitting and penetrating felt?? fender liner.
Car handling not affected at first, in fact didn't know noise was my tire until exiting about 3/4 mile after noise then TPMS alert came on. Seems to have taken an awful long time for that to happen. Stopped car, changed to spare tire. Blown tire had .5 by 1.5 inch hole/flap midway between tread and bead on inside sidewall. Hole was large enough that pressure loss was probably very rapid, much faster than TPMS reacted.
I live in Phoenix AZ metro area, not a single tire or Audi dealer that I contacted had an OE tire available, one checked with Goodyear and found tire in distribution center in CA. Took about 4 days to get tire delivered. Unfortunately I did not have road hazard insurance on tires, that's the first time I did not purchase. New OE tire was within a few dollars of $600 counting balance and install.
Learned a couple of lessons. Buy the darn road hazard insurance, it's worth it when and if needed. A6 suspension etc. handles loss of air pressure very well, no worries if tire has sudden loss of pressure.
One final note: Four day wait for tire would not be an option if away from home, I probably would have ended up with mismatched front/rear tires or worse 4 new tires with the added expense.

 

$600 for a mounted and balanced Goodyear F1 for an A6? Yikes. I would have considered duct taping the old one.

 

For $600 I would have gotten a set of 4 new tires, especially with Quattro where the tire thread should be within the same range on all 4 tires.

 

i always get 2 replaced if 1 tire blows out. 4 even better. That's why blow out is expensive

 

At only 7k, I think he's OK with one. I had a blowout as well at 7k, and the guy at the tire shop compared wear and said it would be fine.

 

Most sources I've found state the difference between tires in tread depth for Audi quattro (assuming the same brand/model of tires) shouldn't exceed a 4/32" difference. If the new tire is more than that, it can be shaved to get within tolerance. TireRack has an informative article explaining the general whys and wherefores of all wheel drive systems and tires.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=18

 

Hate to say it but IMO you got ripped off paying $600 for that one tire.

Shoot, given you waited 4 days you could have had it shipped from an online retailer for half or less in 2 to 3 days

 

First thank goodness you are ok. I tend to think while any blow out is not fun and can be dangerous, rear blow out should be easier to handle than a fron blow out.

I purchase road hazard on every new car and/or set of tires. I can go to Discount Tire and pay around $100-$125 to get road hazard coverage on the tires, even if I did not buy the tires from them. Have done this for last 6 or 7 cars since a while back I had anew car that took a nail in sidewall and cost me $350 to get that Michelin replaced.