Had to have her towed today......

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Fastbird

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The wife was driving to work and the front right tire just came apart. The tires are Firestone Firehawk LH's. Let me tell you, after I got there, I was like "Holy crap!" I'm damn surprised that she kept control. That freaking thing came totally apart at the sidewall of all places. Complete tread separation.

Now, here's the REALLY interesting thing: The rear right tire is showing an extremely similar wear pattern on the side wall at the exact same location as to where the front tire came apart. The front left tire is showing the starting phases of this same wear, and the left rear tire looks fine. This unusual wear is NOT from hard cornering or rubbing as that is the ONLY wear on the sidewall. The wear itself is about 1/2" in width around the entire circumference of the tire, immediately above the Firestone and Firehawk lettering on the sidewall.

I get there and go to put on the brand new full size spare, and of course, I've got a trashed lugnut. :mad: So a simple tire change turned into a 5 hour ordeal as I waited for a tow to Pep Boys, then spent 3 hours there waiting to get in. Fortunately, they got the lugnut off, and didn't even charge me (I was in uniform and aparrently the service guy got a stretched ride back from Iraq on an Air Force jet a couple of years ago) which was awesome. Upon further inspection I had a MISSING lugnut on the right rear tire!!!! So......

I call up the stealership, and get quoted $5.56 for a lugnut. I can hack that for a couple. So instead of going to the dealership I called, I went to one that was more on the way back to work. Get there (it's a MUCH nicer dealership in a WAY nicer area -- I called Turnersville Holmann and went to Maple Shade Holmann for you NJ peeps) and they want to charge me $8.50 a lugnut!!! I said "I'm sorry, but that's fooking ridiculous to pay that much for a damn lugnut." The parts guy agreed and knocked them down to $5.00 each (again probably because I was in uniform). Got those tossed on and away I went.

So, we're going to swap to snow tired on the stock 17's in the next couple of weeks probably, and then in March/April timeframe put some new rims (18's) and tires on it for the nicer weather.

And yes, PICS to come. Just gotta wait on the wife to get home so I can take some shots.
 
Glad to hear that your wife is ok that is what matters the most, interested in seeing the pics!!!!
 
Damn man, those stock lug nuts really suck... You should get some of those Sebring lug nuts. That's messed up to tow the car because of some lug nut..
 
How many miles do you have on those things? The one in the second picture looks rather worn.

As for the separation, the really surprising thing is that there are no apparent radial fibers in the gap. I've had blowouts and flats that have shredded the sidewalls, but there were always radial fibers left...
 
SoonerLS said:
How many miles do you have on those things? The one in the second picture looks rather worn.

As for the separation, the really surprising thing is that there are no apparent radial fibers in the gap. I've had blowouts and flats that have shredded the sidewalls, but there were always radial fibers left...
Click to expand...

That's the thing. We've got 20K miles on the car since purchase and haven't changed the tires. The fronts have (had for 1) a TON of treadlife left though. I mean they're practically new is how much tread is there. The rears have approx 3/16" as of the last measurement back in November. That's one reason why I'm going to write firestone though is the relatively low mileage on the front one that went and then the fact that the wear is just happening on it's own to three of our tires (including the 2nd very new front one).
 
didn't firestone get sued for this a couple years back? i heard they almost went bankrupt. i'm not sure, but i think firestone had to recall alot of their tires for this reason.....heck, maybe you can sue them too. j/k. :)
 
Your car is very nice, sucks about the tire, they held up fine for me for stockers. I think they handled decently for stock tires too. If you're looking for 18's try out the Chrome Stern ST-1's, I just bought a black set and the wheels are a hit at the place I'm putting them on. Like I said we can meet up some time and I'll show you them since I live real close to you. Good quality wheel, two of them were perfectly balanced out of the factory, the other two barely took any weight. I'm interested in hearing your magnaflow too.
 
waltdeuce said:
http://money.cnn.com/2000/08/09/news/firestone_recall/

try this link. talks about the firestone recall.

HERE'S FIRESTONE'S ACTUAL "TIRE RECALL INFO CENTER"........
http://www.firestone-tire-recall.com/pages/advocate_safety.html
THEY EVEN SHOW PICTURES THAT ARE SIMILAR TO YOURS.......MAYBE THEY'LL SEND YOU NEW ONES. OPT FOR THE WIDE OVALS.......IF THEY DO. SO MUCH FOR BUYING AMERICAN.....GO KUMHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! J/K.
Click to expand...

Good info and links. Unfortunately, they're almost 5 1/2 years old now too...... Food for thought though.

KD00LS said:
Your car is very nice, sucks about the tire, they held up fine for me for stockers. I think they handled decently for stock tires too. If you're looking for 18's try out the Chrome Stern ST-1's, I just bought a black set and the wheels are a hit at the place I'm putting them on. Like I said we can meet up some time and I'll show you them since I live real close to you. Good quality wheel, two of them were perfectly balanced out of the factory, the other two barely took any weight. I'm interested in hearing your magnaflow too.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd definitely like to meet up sometime and see those wheels. Just let me know when, I'm free most evenings and weekends.

Thanks for the props on the car everyone!
 
I'm almost positive the Firestone recall was for tires used on the Explorer and similar.

I would send that picture of the seperated tire to some folks that know tires and ask them their opinion on why it failed. That is a very unusual looking failure. It's almost like the tire was grossly underinflated. But it doesn't seem to show other signs of that. What does the other side of the tire look like in the same area? I would really like to know the cause.
 
2001LS8Sport said:
I'm almost positive the Firestone recall was for tires used on the Explorer and similar.

I would send that picture of the seperated tire to some folks that know tires and ask them their opinion on why it failed. That is a very unusual looking failure. It's almost like the tire was grossly underinflated. But it doesn't seem to show other signs of that. What does the other side of the tire look like in the same area? I would really like to know the cause.
Click to expand...

The recall wasn't exclusive to the truck tires......those just got the most publicity because a catastrophic failure like that on a truck at speed is extremely hazardous.

I went to the firestone website and they have a consumer affairs division that you can contact, which I of course am going to (with pics).
 
Hmmm, that second picture doesn't show enough to be sure but it appears that the tread wear is along at least the outside tread area(right along the shadow line). This usually is an indication that the tires are under inflated and the tread is cupping. What this means is that the center tread is lifting off the ground and the edges are what is riding on the road. This causes early wear out. This can also in extreme cases result in the side wall failing just like picture #1 shows. When the tire is severely underinflated, it will over heat the sidewall where it meets the tread and cause failure in the long run. Over time the fibers oxidize and disappear, thus you may not see a lot of threads. You might see a lot of carbon dust on the inside of the casing, this is oxidized rubber and threads.

This kind of wear can also be a result of bad alignment, I think the camber is off, with the tire tilted towards the outside at the top and riding on the outside tread at the bottom. The way to tell if this is the case is check the entire tread. If the wear is only on the outside then you have an alignment problem. Picture #1 might indicate this but not clearly enough. If it is both inside and outside edges but not the center, then you have underinflation.

Without better pictures and or looking at the tires I would blame under inflation which lead to early tread wear on the outside edges and failure of the sidewal where the tread meets the sidewall.

The manual inflation recommendations are not always the best ones for tread life. Unfortunately in my experience it takes almost wearing out a set of tires to be able to tell when the pressures should be different from the manual. Don't know on the LS but two previous Fords I owned needed pressures way different from the manual recommendations.

Just based on the pictures I would not be able to put the blame on Firestone. Not what you want to hear, but likely to be what they say.

I am NOT a tire expert but have read enough and worn out enough tires to have seen this kind of failure.

Good Luck, and check those inflation pressures and alignment.

Jim Henderson
 
Jim, not trying to discount anything you said because it's 100% true, but the tires were NEVER underinflated and the alignment is spot on. The tread is showing even wear around every tire.

Something to note, had the tire been run underinflated, more than just that consistent 1/2" line would have been worn in the side. Probably most of the sidewall from that line up would have been worn.

This is (to me at least) plainly a case of the classic failures Firestone was experiencing a few years ago. I seriously doubt that these are the original tires however as the car has just under 96,000 miles on it.

*Edit* I see what you were saying about that second pic, but I had cleaned it up to show the wear pattern a bit better and it washed out a little bit, which is why the tread doesn't show there. But it's there, believe me.
 
I thought most of the recalls were on the truck tire too. It wouldn't surprize me if all there tires had similar problems, I believe it was the manufacturing proceedures that were blamed, or the grade of rubber used, not just that tire size was affected. My parents Cougar came new with Firehawks and they were all kinds of worn stupid and had to be replaced at something like 40k. And that was probably 10k longer than I would of ran them. Their car had no issues at all. They run Coopers now, probably 25k on them, no problems. Never a alignment or anything that I ever knew about. Cheap tires are cheap tires, you get your moneys worth from the better ones in the long run. Some of the big manufacturers have cheap tires too.
 
Yeah, like I said the pics aren't too clear and I am not there to look at the actual tread. So I believe you.

Sidewall wear is not necessarily from scuffing on the asphalt, more often the sidewall fails due to continual flexing as the "Fat Spot" of the sidewal rolls to the bottom and becomes stretched sideways and then goes back to normal as that part of the tire rolls back up above ground contact. This flexing causes a lot of heat right at that line between the tread and sidewall. This heat is what causes the eventual failure of the tire. I have had this happen once on a tire that was a constant slow leaker, the dealer showed me how the fibers had failed and scooped out carbon dust from the heat.

From what you say this is not your problem, so it could be shoddy tire manufaturing.

I have always been a bit nervous about Firestones, although the one set I had way back in the 80s did fine. Still, too many horror stories over the past 30 years(early 70s at least) on thoses treads.

Good Luck, don't show the pics to the dealer, they don't help the cause.

Jim Henderson
 
Doh. Sent Firestone a nice email last night explaining the situation and my concerns, and forgot to attach the pictures. :D Guess I'll see if I got a reply later tonight and if not resend with the tracking number, and pics attached this time.
 
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