Don't assume that anyone that's had problems with these tires is an SUV nimrod
with a phone plastered to their ear. We had a Firestone Wilderness tire come
apart on our Tacoma V-6. The tire had a good amount of mileage on it, but
still had useable tread. Inflation was checked regularly. Travelling at about
80 mph in the fast lane on I-5 (about 10 pm, fortunately) the right rear tire
came apart catastrophically. The remaining ribbon of tread wrapped itself
around the axle, bringing the rear around even more violently than you would
expect. It took some very fancy driving all over the freeway lanes, but no
collisions or hard impact resulted. If it had happened at 5 pm, someone would
have been hurt. I checked the remains of the tire afterward, and there were no
signs of any road hazard damage which could have caused the tire to literally
fly apart. Since they did have some miles on them, I didn't take any action.
So, not to be hysterical about it, but if you have a set of these tires, do
yourself a favor and get rid of them.
We had actually complained about the quality of these tires to Toyota shortly
after we bought the vehicle, because they had very poor performance
characteristics for a vehicle with the acceleration and weight of a Tacoma. In
general, I've noted that there are a lot of cheap rock hard tires being shipped
on some very capable cars. Eagle GAs may be fine on a Buick Century, but they
don't belong belong on a Camaro. I stongly recommend that before buying a
performance car, take a good look at the tires and make better tires a part of
the deal before signing on the bottom line.
Ron Chapman
85 CRX CSP
99 Miata Sport
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