Big scare! Noise from front of car
 

Heading to lunch today in my trusty new 2011 Fit with about 600 miles on it, I turn onto some fresh new blacktop, smooth as a baby's.... um... glass coffee table. Yeah. Anyway, I FEEL this THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP going on under my planted left foot. OH NOES! Tire gone bad? Flat? Bubbled up due to over inflation (38PSI) since it was like 90 out also? Steering or tranny gears gone bad??? NO!! New car fail!!!

So I pulled over and luckily had stopped perfectly for the front left tire to show me it's problem. Right on the tread was a 3 inch large glob of tar stuck to the tire, deep into the tread and hanging off the inside a bit. THAT was going thump thump thump with each rotation. Usually, that kind of thing might fly right off. But it took a lot of scraping, and pulling off small chunks of it. It was adhered pretty well and was hard to tell the difference from the tar and the tire. But got it all clean and all is well now. First time I'd ever experienced that kind of issue on tires.

They are re-tarring cracks around work and I must have picked up a fresh pile. I'd say it easily covered half of the tread width.

ANYWAY, sinks your heart for a little bit to worry if you got a new lemon

Glad it was O.K... Of course, if a defective part did fail, now (while still under warranty) is a good time for it to do so. Another thing that can happen with your wheel/tire is that a clump of dirt can get trapped by inertia inside the sport wheels; that can throw your wheel balance off until it is dislodged.

Ice and snow build up inside the rim can cause this as well

OMG, First snow of the year is freaking hilarious. It's like clockwork, Everybody comes in to work talking about how their cars are shaking at high speeds and they think there is something wrong. Until I take them outside and point to all the snow packed into their rim.