FYI Bridgestone Turanza

My Lexus came stock with Bridgestone Turanza tires in the size of 255/40 x 18. About a month ago one of the rear tires suddenly let go and the tread just peeled right off. Fortunately I was going slow and was left with an intact carcass so I was able to make it home.

I never thought about trying to get warranty on the tires. I was nowhere near a Firestone dealer so it wouldn't have been easy anyway. I bought another pair of tires for the rear and saved the "good" one in case one of the fronts got damaged.

Today I was driving home and suddenly I heard a flapping noise so I quickly stopped and found the tread was letting go on one of the front tires as well. There was what appeared to be a rubber and fabric strip that coming out of what looked almost like a cut. I was close to home so I drove home and then put on the spare. When I went up to Firestone to see about warranty (see I got smarter) we found out that the other front tire had already peeled off a band about 1.5" wide and was in worse shape than the one that I'd heard let go.

Firestone said they'd warranty it and have ordered the tires. That's cool, but 3 out of the 4 tires letting go the same way?!?

That has to be a manufacturing defect. I wonder how many others have let go and people have had wrecks?

How do you report something like this?

I'm definitely not going to use or allow anyone else to use the "good" tire I have left!

So the moral to this story is if you have Bridgestone Turanzas in the size of 255/40 x 18 on any of your cars check them out and be super careful

That is odd. The worst I have ever experienced was a sidewall belt separation on some no-names that were on my Crown Vic, and the insane, both front tires gone* in 1100 miles wear on my too-much-toe-in Aspire.

*gone, as in worn a hole through the belts leading to flat tire.

Report it to NHTSA (easy to do online) and let your tax dollars work. Enough complaints received and they open an investigation - that's how recalls get started.

Bridgestone/Firestone blamed the Ford Explorer tread separation problem on owners not keeping the tires properly inflated (and because of this the gov ended up forcing all automakers to install tire pressure monitoring systems). I wonder if they were full of crap about it and those tires actually had design or manufacturing flaws, and the underinflation simply sped up the tires' demise? (I'm assuming you had the tires properly inflated).

Bob

1: How old are the tires

2: Are they dry rotted or cracked on the remaining tires.

I have TPMS and it's set at 34 psi. It's so annoying that you don't let the tires run at 34 or less for more than it takes to stop and get them aired up so they haven't been run under inflated.

The tires were OEM on a 2009 and they look perfect other than the tread issue.

Manufacture date stamped on the sidewall appears to be 9/08.

Schmidlap wrote: Bridgestone/Firestone blamed the Ford Explorer tread separation problem on owners not keeping the tires properly inflated (and because of this the gov ended up forcing all automakers to install tire pressure monitoring systems). I wonder if they were full of crap about it and those tires actually had design or manufacturing flaws, and the underinflation simply sped up the tires' demise? (I'm assuming you had the tires properly inflated).

To indirectly answer your question, the Goodyear-equipped models had no problems at all.

Well, it is a Toyota...

Sorry,

I had a set of Michelin tires that all separated within a few months of each other. They had over 50K on them, but it was still the last set of Michelin tires I ever bought. I want to be able to see air before the carcass fails.