If You're Still Driving On Firestones, Read This!!!!

[01EB5.0]

The previous owner of my explorer put 72,000 miles on his Firestone ATX's. He said the tires still had tread left, but were becoming dry rotted. He put a nice set of BFG Long Trails, which I must say are an EXCELLENT tire for all around driving. VERY quiet on street and EXCELLENT traction on any condition...both on and off road. I highly recommend these BFG's.
On a side note, on the firestones make sure you keep them pumped up the way they should be. i too often see underinflated tires and that could cause the tires to opverheat and blowout just like the Firestones. We have had Bridgestones on both out 94 E150 van and my Dad's 95 Volvo 850 and have had no problems at all.

 

[kilroy]

Hmm I have the Wilderness AT's, and haven't had any complaints about them. They gripped the snow well, and seem pretty sticky when its wet out, but the tread separation thing is something I will definately watch out for!

 

[Henry]

I got the following info from the NHTSA web site (www.nhtsa.org) and it confirms the information given to/by Rick.

NHTSA Action Number: PE00020
Make: FIRESTONE
Model: ATX
Year: 1900
Component: EQUIPMENT
Manufacturer: FIRESTONE TIRE & RUBBER C
Date Investigation Opened: Tue, May 02, 2000
Date Investigation Closed:
NHTSA Recall Campaign Number:
Summary: TIRE TREAD SEPARATION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NHTSA Action Number: PE00020
Make: FIRESTONE
Model: ATX II
Year: 1900
Component: EQUIPMENT
Manufacturer: FIRESTONE TIRE & RUBBER C
Date Investigation Opened: Tue, May 02, 2000
Date Investigation Closed:
NHTSA Recall Campaign Number:
Summary: TIRE TREAD SEPARATION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NHTSA Action Number: PE00020
Make: FIRESTONE
Model: WILDERNESS
Year: 1900
Component: EQUIPMENT
Manufacturer: FIRESTONE TIRE & RUBBER C
Date Investigation Opened: Tue, May 02, 2000
Date Investigation Closed:
NHTSA Recall Campaign Number:
Summary: TIRE TREAD SEPARATION

The link to the actual page is: Dead Link Removed
(Note: this URL is date related since the search engine asks for a number of days)

 

[pacman]

I had heard about the problems with the Firestone ATX tires, but never about the Wilderness AT's. I haven't had any trouble at all with these (now have about 24k on them). I don't off-road much at all (maybe once a year to camp) and I go up to snow country 2 or 3 times during the winter and have been impressed with the tires in all conditions. Of course I haven't compared these to anything else yet...

Pacman

 

[Isles4evr]

Presently I am still on the stones (P235's), but will be putting BFG AT's on the 17th. The other week I was going to work riding on the same road, taking the same turn at the same avg speed in weather that I have do it in before... It had been a light misting since 9am and it was around 2pm then. All of a sudden my rearend slid out while in the middle of that turn into the parrallel turing lane (exit ramp of I-95). Thank God there was no car beside me..you guys would of had one less Explorer owner . Anyway, when I got to work, my Manager came in 30 minutes later and told me I had a flat. It was my driver side rear, and then driving I slid to the right. I had split the tread pretty bad, and I guess that is what cause me to slide.

It's all good now, because on the 17th it's going up and I'm putting 32 BFG AT's (finaly)... I have a nice story to tell about why it has taken me so long to put the tires on, and maybe when I submit my Explorer to this site, Rick will be kind enough to put the story on as well (please ).

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Turner55]

when i bought my splorer it had some goodyear trackers on it...i took it in to get a slow leak fixed and it started shakin really bad @ 65 mph after i got it back...took it back, they balanced them, shook real bad and pulled real bad to the right when i got it back...needless to say i was pissed because it was fine before i tried to fix the damn flat...anyways, took it to the shop to find out what was wrong and they said it was bad tires (hmmm, i thought, how come they were fine before i got the flat fixed?) so i had to buy brand new tires...GRRRR
they put some kind of grand spirit radial gt's on there that are supposedly good tires...only time will tell

 

[BExplorer]

Firestone?

I was wondering, if Brigestone, Firestone and Dayton are the same banner, are all these brand the same quality. I have Bridgestone Dueler A/T, and they seem to go find. They have no wall or tread decomposition, they run good too. But if quality is the same to Firestone, would they too make me run to an accident.

 

[-=DaemoN=-]

I also have BRIDGESTONES, RoadHandler....
I'm wondering if it'll turn out like my Firestones or anybody's?

 

[Jim F]

Keep in mind as a tire age, the rubber gets hard and can start to rot and crack on the side walls. The 3 report listed above are 10 year old tires. I just replaced the OEM tires (6 yr old) on a 1994 car. The side walls started to show mild cracking and I was keeping an eye on them. I was rotating the tires one day and was rolling the drivers side rear forward and found the tire would not roll straight. It kept wanting to fall over. These were 185R75/14 tires. I inspected the tread and found 3 bulges in the thread of the tire and signs of excessive inside thread wear opposite each bulge. The tires were General tires. I very quickly started doing research on replacing all 4 tires and drove another car until I decided. I count my blessings everytime I think how fortunate I was to find the problem before that tire failed. The other tires seemed to be OK. I was curious when they took that tire off the rim if it had been patch due to a flat before. Much to my surprise, it had never been patched or flat (side walls over flexed). I am the original owner of the car, so I know the tire history.

Bottom line, if your tires are getting old and they still have plenty of tread, beware, they may still need to be replaced. 400 dollars goes a long ways to save a life or body/car damage.

Oh yeh, keep in mind that the sun can prematurely age rubber and shorten tire life, not to mention overflexed sidewalls. Excessive curbing a tire can break the corner of the tread.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[Peter]

This is interesting because my Dad had to replace one of these Firestones because it was "wurring"...I cant remember but I think it was because one of the steel radials had split of something like that, if that sounds right.

 

[Turner55]

bridgestone

when i found out that my goodyear's were bad i asked what kind of tire i should get...the guy (who we trust very much) said to stay away from big brands like firestone, goodyear, michelin, and get a tire made by smaller brands like kelly. he said bridgestones were OK though vs. the big brands, which i thought was interesting when he said it because firestone and bridgestone were both the same...maybe they are different, just owned by the same people...i dont know

 

[Henry]

Just this past weekend I had a problem with one of my tires. I was on a road trip this past Saturday of 4 hours each way. I have been having problems with one tire -- it seemed to be out of round, or something. After the trip it was loosing air badly so on Monday I took it in to get fixed. When the guy took off the wheel to fix it he found that the tread had started to separate on the inside wall. Ever since hearing about these tire problems I have been keeping an eye on my tires and had NOT seen any deterioration that would indicate a separation was imminent. The damage occurred in one 8 hour trip!

I have pictures of the tire (I happened to have borrowed one of my company's digital camaras), but I don't know how to include them in my post. If someone can explain how, or I can e-mail them to someone who can, I'd like to show what it looks like when its about to go.

 

[Henry]

Pictures of Firestones about to go...

Here are the pictures of my bad tire.


This first picture shows most of the whole tire (the top one only is mine). You can easily see six places where the tread was starting to let go.

Dead Link Removed



This is a close-up of the biggest area of separation. The camara didn't get it clearly enough, but you can actually look between the tread and the belts and inside the tire at this spot.

Dead Link Removed


This was happening on the inside side of the tire (facing inward) -- make sure you take a good look at the sidewalls and tread there!

 

[kilroy]

How can I post a Pic here on the BB? I have a couple of the sidewalls of my firestones, and was wondering if someone would know if this is a prerequisite of tread separation.


BTW We need a WHite Explorer icon.

 

[Henry]

Kilroy,

See the thread Dead Link Removed in the "Website and Forum Feedback" forum where I asked, and received the answer to, the same question.

 

[kilroy]

OK here they are! The first pic is my right front tire, showing a crack running the entire circumference of the tire right where the sidewall meets the tread. The second is my right rear which shows no crack whatsoever. The third and fourth are my left rear and front which also have the crack running around it.
(dead links)
[Edited by kilroy on 06-23-2000 at 12:51 PM]

 

[kilroy]

For some weird reason every other pic doesn't come up when I preview it, so here it the second pic. The other 2 on the left side are similiar to the first pic.
(dead link)
If this is a problem with the tire where it will eventually give out at that crack and come apart, how do I go about getting them replaced without having to buy all new tires since these have plenty of tread left. My extended warranty covers tire replacement, but I doubt if this warrants a replacement.

 

[BigDave]

Henry...

The picture that you posted. I don't mean to be rude, mean, etc., but how can you complain about tread separation when your tire is worn bald on that side. I would not blame that separation on Firestone, but on poor tire maintenance. Just my $.02.

I don't like the Firestone tires at all, but I do believe in being fair, when you run the tire bald and the tread starts to separate and you want to berate the manufacturer because of it, that is wrong.

Dave

 

[Goober]

Sorry Henry,
I must agree. It did separate but the tire is down to the belts. It seem to me the tires are well worn on the inside suggesting an alignment problem. Hopefully you had this checked before any new tires were put on. I cannot complain about the firestone on mine because they lasted to 67,000 miles and still had 1/4 of the tread left. The only reason I replaced them was because I was going on a 10 hour trip and after looking at the cracks in-between the tires, got them replaced. They were over 4 years old and they did their job. I'm not saying there isn't a problem, but it's not always the manufacturer's fault. Now in Kilroy's case, I can see the point. That looks like to me, a re-tread, or the tread not sealing to the rest of the tire. Beware!...end of my $0.02.

 

[Henry]

BigDave, I understand what you're saying. The tread was getting down and I knew it needed to be replaced soon, but that doesn't mean the tire should come apart. Don't forget, you're looking at the bad side of the tire -- the inside-facing part, the tire itself isn't bald, just getting low (hard to tell that from the picture though).

I guess what I was trying to get across is that it can happen rather suddenly. This tire did not look like that a few days prior. Not all Firestone tires are bad, but I want people to be aware that when these tires get low they become susceptible to the damage in those pictures and maybe that's causing some of the problems.

BTW, the other three tires weren't like this and I'm assuming they're all the same age. I did have an alignment done less than a year ago when the steering box was replaced.