Excuse the free image hosting and the crappy pix (from my cellphone camera)
I just noticed the damage today. Judging by the adjacent damage to that hubcap, I’m guessing it happened either last week, when I was doing some parallel parking (though I didn’t think I touched the curb hard enough to do that) or several weeks ago, when I scraped against a raised divider in my parking garage.
Obviously this looks bad, but how bad is it? I drove home on it (~14 miles, mostly on an Interstate), but went a bit slower than usual. The tires are new (came with the car) and have around 8000 miles on them. Do I need to get this replaced ASAP or can it wait a bit? If it can wait, how long–at least until Friday, which would be payday? Do I need to replace the tire, or is there some sort of repair that could be done?
I know it’s best to buy all 4 tires at the same time, or if you can’t do that, buying a pair. Given how new my tires are, could I get away with just getting one (especially if I chose the same model as the remaining 3)?
I will not hold any of you liable if I continue to drive on these and I suffer a blowout on the Interstate. I just want to get a feel for how bad this problem really is.