Riding home the other evening about 8pm my Marathon Plus tire blew out with a bang. Luckily I only had a mile to walk home. I looked on the road for something I could have run over and found nothing. When I got home I looked at the tire and there was a 2" split in the middle of the tread. The tube only had a half inch cut. The tire is only 2 months old with 500 miles on it. I took it back to the store and told them the tire did not hold up to the flat protection I expected. The salesman said it was not a tire defect and that I must have run over something. However, I insisted that I didn't and I inspected the road surface for any sharp objects and found none. He said he would not replace the tire and would I like to buy another one. I said I would not buy another one from this store. So he took the tire to his manager to see if they would do anything. After about 5 minutes of waiting, he came back and grabbed the same tire off the rack and said they will replace mine with a new one. So when I got the tire back home, I installed it with the tread going the right direction this time and took it out for a test ride this morning. I purposely rode over sidewalk and road seams parallel to see if the tire handled any differently. It sure did. I'm now confident in the ride handling safety of this tire. I'm also happy that the bike store stands behind their customer satisfaction statements and will return to it for more purchases.