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Re: Firestone SUV Tires Major Failures

To: Bill Ozinga <oz@tirerack.com>
Subject: Re: Firestone SUV Tires Major Failures
From: Rob Foley <RobertJFoley@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 21:12:54 -0400
Out of lurk-dom for a rare post.

I got one of them Exploder family truckster/tow vehicles.  Complete with 5
of those suspect 235/75-15 Wilderness AT's.  The truck has about 17,000
miles on it.  I check pressure routinely.  The tires are fine.  This truck
has crummy diving dynamics, some of which can be blamed on the mega-lug
tread pattern of the tires, but I agree with the prior statements about
underinflation, overloading, and not enough attention to driving and
otherwise being the root cause of the problems.  Ford builds almost 500,000
Explorers a year these days.  Think how many idiots buy them.

 Anyone who has witnessed my arrival and departures from events I tow to
knows I do NOT travel light, especially with the family along.  Also,
anyone who has driven along with me to events knows trailering does not
impeed my forward progress in getting there.  If I though I thought there
was a potential tire problem, they would be changed out. 

 I had Firestone tire problems on my previous truck, which had FTX
235/60-15's. (Sport suspended Ranger)  Two sets of rears (1st OEM, 2nd
replacements from TireRack) developed circumferential sidewall cracks all
the way around after about 35,000 miles each.  I believe this was
heat/speed related due to sidewall flexing.   After it happened with the
second pair, off to the BFG store I went.

>From what I have seen and read of this problem, I would be very suprised to
see a tire recall.

Rob Foley

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