As far as I can tell, tires just blow up when they feel like it. Ridiculous abuse hasn't failed my tires, but normal driving with 35-40psi in a 50psi rated tire has.
...fifty pounds each didn't seem to help with the cornering, so I went back a few hours later and told him I wanted to try seventy-five. He shook his head nervously. "Not me," he said, handing me the air-hose. Here. They're your tires, you do it."
"What's wrong?" I asked. "You think they can't take seventy-five?"
He nodded, moving away as I stooped to deal with the left front. "You're damn right," he said. "Those tires want twenty-eight in the front and thirty-two in the rear. Fifty's dangerous, but seventy-five is crazy. They'll explode!"
"I told you," I said, "Sandoz laboratories designed those tires. They're special. I could load them up to a hundred."
"God almighty!" he groaned. "Don't do that here."
"Not today," I replied, "I want to see how they corner at seventy-five."
He chuckled. "You won't even get to the corner, Mister."
"We'll see," I said, moving around to the rear with the air-hose. In truth, I was nervous. The two front ones were tighter than snare-drums; they felt like teak wood when I tapped on them with the rod. But what the hell? I thought. If they explode, so what? It's not often a man gets a chance to run terminal experiments on a virgin Cadillac and four brand-new $80 tires.
--Hunter S Thompson, 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', 1971