B737-700 Captain reported concerns over the automated maintenance system not being capable of showing all the needed information concerning a maintenance discrepancy. A blown nose tire had been discovered on a post flight walk around the night before and had not been addressed. When the Contract Maintenance Technician arrived during the next day's pre-flight; significant additional damage was revealed; causing a delay.

Narrative

This is being submitted due to; what can only be perceived by this writer; as a lack of predictive capability on the part of the maintenance automated maintenance systems. Prior to show time at the gate in ZZZ; my First Officer notified me that the flight was delayed. Once at the airport our agent stated that the left nose tire needed to be replaced due to damage found by inbound crew; the previous night; during a terminating walk around. Once he arrived at the aircraft; the contract maintenance tech found additional damage to equipment in the nose strut area. Upon further inspection; the strut was collapsed with no dimension x whatsoever and the wire harness on the scissors area had been ripped from its canon plug. The canon plug was nowhere in sight. A review of the logbook indicated that there had been an ongoing problem with the strut during the previous eight days; with at least three separate write ups. Along with the nose tire write up in the logbook; there was also a write up on the PSEU light illuminating during shutdown. That would have been the case; since there was a loss of air-ground sensing on the nose strut; due to the wire bundle being severed by the tire shredding itself on landing. Additionally; we were unable to complete a successful Inertial Reference System (IRS) alignment. Phone conversation; manager on call recommended a technique that should have resulted in a full alignment; once the tire replacement was completed. The IRS conducts two internal comparison tests during its initial alignment. I would hazard a guess that; since all six air ground sensors were not reporting; the comparison tests would have been unsuccessful since the aircraft would have no way of knowing if it was on the ground; until the wire bundle had been replaced and reconnected.