Wait 'til those Uniroyals have a little wear and let us know. I doubt the report will be so glowing......
What's the deal with Goodyear tires?
- Thread starter bottgers
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I've always liked the high end Goodyears, never had a problem with them. These days however, I'm switching my cars over to Bridgestones.
When I did a Plus-1 upgrade on my Acura, the GY offerings in the size I was looking for was nothing special so I went with a set of Firestone SZ50s because they were on sale. I really liked them and now just replaced them with a set of Bridgestone Expedia S-01s. OMG these tires are incredible!
The GY Eagle ZRs on my wife's Olds will need to be replaced soon and again, nothing from GY stands out. The Bridgestone Potenza RE750 has caught my eye though so I'll be going for a set of those early next year.
My Porsche has a set of old Pirelli P700Zs that I would have probably gone with GY Eagle F1 DS-G3s but I'm going to take my chances and go with a set of Bridgestone Potenza RE050A PPs or RE-01Rs.
I'm done with GYs.
When I did a Plus-1 upgrade on my Acura, the GY offerings in the size I was looking for was nothing special so I went with a set of Firestone SZ50s because they were on sale. I really liked them and now just replaced them with a set of Bridgestone Expedia S-01s. OMG these tires are incredible!
The GY Eagle ZRs on my wife's Olds will need to be replaced soon and again, nothing from GY stands out. The Bridgestone Potenza RE750 has caught my eye though so I'll be going for a set of those early next year.
My Porsche has a set of old Pirelli P700Zs that I would have probably gone with GY Eagle F1 DS-G3s but I'm going to take my chances and go with a set of Bridgestone Potenza RE050A PPs or RE-01Rs.
I'm done with GYs.
In North America, Uniroyal is a Michelin brand. Would you say the same of Michelin?
Uniroyal is Michelin's bargain basement brand..They are not made in the same factory.
Goodyear makes some great tires.. it just happens about 9/10
their oem tires BLOW severely..
this would include such great tires as
Eagle LS
RSA
Wrangler ST and RT/S
etc
bridgestone has a couple bad oem tires too.
When ford says give me a tire for 38$ they get cheap tires..
then you pay 100$ for the same poor tire when its time to
replace.
My Wrangler RT/S on 2002 ranger NO ALIGNMENT PROBLEMS
no I didnt take a belt sander to it.. thats the odd
wear.
their oem tires BLOW severely..
this would include such great tires as
Eagle LS
RSA
Wrangler ST and RT/S
etc
bridgestone has a couple bad oem tires too.
When ford says give me a tire for 38$ they get cheap tires..
then you pay 100$ for the same poor tire when its time to
replace.
My Wrangler RT/S on 2002 ranger NO ALIGNMENT PROBLEMS
no I didnt take a belt sander to it.. thats the odd
wear.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you DO have an alignment problem - and it's either toe or thrust angle.
Just for future reference, Rangers are kind of noted for their tire wear problems and a lot can be traced to toe.
My experince says that toe has to be within 1/32" per side - that's 0.06 degrees. Most tolerances are twice that so many folks think their alignment is OK because it is within the "spec".
BTW if both front tires have the same amount of toe, you won't get a pull. Put another way "no pull" doesn't mean "alignment OK".
Another test for alignment related tire wear is: If all 4 tires get the same wear pattern (discounting rotated tires), then it's a tire problem. But if the wear appears only on one end or in one position, it's an alignment problem.
Hope this helps.
No I didnt have alignment problems I put 35000mi on a set of toyos with no odd wear.. also no alignment changes.
It was funny 2 of the stock tires did that... one on the front and one on the back.. they were rotated twice at 6000miles and
11000miles. That pic was at replacement at 14,xxx miles
At 48,xxx miles I blew 2 of the toyos after running over
highway garbage (board with nails)
Replaced with Dean Wildcat LT's by now my front suspension
sagged and I put on CAMBER adjusters. Ran those tires until I sold it last month with almost 80000mi (30000 on tires)
The deans wore pretty good cept for the one time I didnt
rotate them for 10k miles they started cupping a tad on
the inside of the tread.
It was funny 2 of the stock tires did that... one on the front and one on the back.. they were rotated twice at 6000miles and
11000miles. That pic was at replacement at 14,xxx miles
At 48,xxx miles I blew 2 of the toyos after running over
highway garbage (board with nails)
Replaced with Dean Wildcat LT's by now my front suspension
sagged and I put on CAMBER adjusters. Ran those tires until I sold it last month with almost 80000mi (30000 on tires)
The deans wore pretty good cept for the one time I didnt
rotate them for 10k miles they started cupping a tad on
the inside of the tread.
I did pay over 100$ having the alignment checked at 2 different places (also had it checked when the new tires were put on).
I had them give me printouts of the alignment and what
the factory spec was.. it was pretty much dead middle from
both places.
On the other hand my dad's 2005 ranger has the same tires
18000miles no rotation and they are still fine.
I had them give me printouts of the alignment and what
the factory spec was.. it was pretty much dead middle from
both places.
On the other hand my dad's 2005 ranger has the same tires
18000miles no rotation and they are still fine.
See that wear a lot and seems to be combination of alignment, rotation, and shocks. One is bad.
Dunlops SUCK, the ones that came OEM on my mom's 2005 Sienna are probably the worst tires known to man, even my Rainbow sandals have more traction than does. One of them blew out, we put a Goodyear TripleTred on there, as we didn't time to wait for Costco to order us a Michelin HydroEdge, and I don't like the Costco-only Michelin X Radial they carry.
My experience in general is that OEM tires are typically not designed with the same priorities in mind as we as consumers expect so most people can find a tire that performs significanly better for their use than what the OEM tires was capable of. It doesn't really matter what brand tire was on it. The fact that they want them cheap doesn't help. I've typically bought Goodyear tires but had bought several Bridgestone tires and one set of Yokohama's as well. The worst tire was the Yokohama, it started getting noisy within 3,000 miles and most everyone else at the Tirerack website had the same opinion as I did. I don't think I'll bother to buy a newly designed tire again and will wait for people to report how they like them with 30,000+ miles on them. Reviews with less miles than that are not worth much and most of their reviews have just a couple of thousand miles on them.
I've never had a bad GY tire that wasn't OEM but I've always carefully selected the model of tire I wanted. My favorite tire ever was the Eagle Aquatreads, I got over 60,000 miles out of them and they still had some tread left but were getting slippery in the wet since they were over 5 years old. That car got the Yokohamas next (which were terrible) and currently has GY Eagle GT-HR's and are a great tire and I've got over 30,000 miles on them now and they are still fairly quiet and have lots of tread left. My other car had OEM Eagle LS's when I bought it new and gave up on them with just over 30,000 miles on it because they were so slippery in the wet. It has Bridgestone Potenze RE950's on it now but those have gotten quite noisy which may have been due to a poor alignment job when I bought the tires. Otherwise I love them. I know lots of people that love Yokohama tires and they probably make lots of good models but they burned me and I'm hesitant to try them again. I will probably stick with Bridgestone, Goodyear, and Michelin from now on.
You have to be really careful when selecting a tire since the same model of tire can be good in one size and terrible in another. This is mostly true on models that are used as OEM's but offer other sizes as well. The OEM designed sizes might be much different than other sizes. I've seen the same brand/model tire that offers two types for the same size. One made for GM (IIRC) and the other made for BMW. They were the same model and size but were built differently and the one made for BMW were much more expensive. I have no idea if I would like one over the other. They even had the same speed rating. I would never trust any brand 100% across all their models. You have to look at what brands and models are availble for your size tire and see what other people have had good luck with. It makes sense to look for opinions on tires from people with the same car as you that will likely have the same size tire. I hate buying tires because every purchase is a gamble. The only time I'm comfortable buying a tire is when I purchase a Bridgestone Blizzak model because I know what the priorities are when they designed it, snow and ice. I've had 3 different Blizzak models and they were all great in the snow and ice and the newer models keep getting better on dry and wet roads as well.
I've never had a bad GY tire that wasn't OEM but I've always carefully selected the model of tire I wanted. My favorite tire ever was the Eagle Aquatreads, I got over 60,000 miles out of them and they still had some tread left but were getting slippery in the wet since they were over 5 years old. That car got the Yokohamas next (which were terrible) and currently has GY Eagle GT-HR's and are a great tire and I've got over 30,000 miles on them now and they are still fairly quiet and have lots of tread left. My other car had OEM Eagle LS's when I bought it new and gave up on them with just over 30,000 miles on it because they were so slippery in the wet. It has Bridgestone Potenze RE950's on it now but those have gotten quite noisy which may have been due to a poor alignment job when I bought the tires. Otherwise I love them. I know lots of people that love Yokohama tires and they probably make lots of good models but they burned me and I'm hesitant to try them again. I will probably stick with Bridgestone, Goodyear, and Michelin from now on.
You have to be really careful when selecting a tire since the same model of tire can be good in one size and terrible in another. This is mostly true on models that are used as OEM's but offer other sizes as well. The OEM designed sizes might be much different than other sizes. I've seen the same brand/model tire that offers two types for the same size. One made for GM (IIRC) and the other made for BMW. They were the same model and size but were built differently and the one made for BMW were much more expensive. I have no idea if I would like one over the other. They even had the same speed rating. I would never trust any brand 100% across all their models. You have to look at what brands and models are availble for your size tire and see what other people have had good luck with. It makes sense to look for opinions on tires from people with the same car as you that will likely have the same size tire. I hate buying tires because every purchase is a gamble. The only time I'm comfortable buying a tire is when I purchase a Bridgestone Blizzak model because I know what the priorities are when they designed it, snow and ice. I've had 3 different Blizzak models and they were all great in the snow and ice and the newer models keep getting better on dry and wet roads as well.
Let me confirm that OEM tires can be quite different than tires designed for the replacement market.
Vehicle manufacturers have their own priorities and some of these are in direct conflict with what a consumer desires. Keep in mind that every vehicle manufacturer specifies the tire performance characteristics they desire and since they buy millions of tires every year, they are going to get what they ask for.
Let me give you several examples of the conflict between what the vheicle manufacturer wants and what the consumer desires:
Rolling Resistance: Every vehicle manufacturer has to meet a CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) value. One of the ways they achieve these values is by demanding low RR tires. But what comes along with low RR is poor traction (especially wet traction), poor wear, and poor resistance to chunking - none of which are acceptable tradeoffs for the consumer. This is probably the most common conflict, especially with US based vehicle manufacturers
Dry traction: The desire to emulate BMW's handling prompts a lot of vehicle manufacturers to specify higher speed ratings. While speed rating isn't directly tied to handling, the 2 go hand in hand. But what comes along for the ride is poor tread wear, and ride harshness. For some cars this makes sense, but putting a V rated tire on your basic sedan doesn't.
But there is a more subtle, but nevertheless consumer unfriendly thing that sometimes happens. In order to get good handling, some vehicles come with large amounts of camber, either built in or in the camber curve of the suspension movement. This results in irregular wear, sometimes even if the tires are rotated regularly. Needless to say, the vehicle dealer (who is clueless about the cause) points to the tires. But the poor consumer finds out different when his next set (different brand) does the same thing. By then the vehicle is out of warranty.
Another of the more subtle things is that consumers assume (rightly so) that vehicles come from the factory properly aligned. They don't always, and aligning vehicle on an assembly line is very different than on an alignment rack. In particular, I've discovered that every time there is an alignment wear problem, the vehicle alignment is in the outer half of the tolerance. Looking at the alignment tolerances published by the vehicle manufacturers, the tolerances are pretty wide, leading many dealers to say "It's in spec". But that doesn't make it right! If you look at the tolerances for heavy trucks, where tire wear is extremely important to their cost, you'll see my point.
Last but not least is vibration. Some of this is caused by vehicles sitting on dealers lots and the tires develop flat spots. This of course is easily fixed by changing the tires, but this leads a lot of consumers to believe the tires were defective in some way.
This is not helped by the low RR as tire weight hurts RR but helps ride.
Further, the alignment tolerances I mentioned above can sometimes cause irregular wear, which comes out as a vibration or noise. Since a lot of OE tires have low RR, they wear fairly rapidly, aggravating this situation. Replacing the tires makes the vibration go away, and if the tire dealer is smart (and most of them are!), they'll sell an alignment with the new set of tires.
Bottomline - OE tires have to be considered as different tires, even if there is a whole line of tires with the same name, and even between different sizes that go on different vehicles.
Vehicle manufacturers have their own priorities and some of these are in direct conflict with what a consumer desires. Keep in mind that every vehicle manufacturer specifies the tire performance characteristics they desire and since they buy millions of tires every year, they are going to get what they ask for.
Let me give you several examples of the conflict between what the vheicle manufacturer wants and what the consumer desires:
Rolling Resistance: Every vehicle manufacturer has to meet a CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) value. One of the ways they achieve these values is by demanding low RR tires. But what comes along with low RR is poor traction (especially wet traction), poor wear, and poor resistance to chunking - none of which are acceptable tradeoffs for the consumer. This is probably the most common conflict, especially with US based vehicle manufacturers
Dry traction: The desire to emulate BMW's handling prompts a lot of vehicle manufacturers to specify higher speed ratings. While speed rating isn't directly tied to handling, the 2 go hand in hand. But what comes along for the ride is poor tread wear, and ride harshness. For some cars this makes sense, but putting a V rated tire on your basic sedan doesn't.
But there is a more subtle, but nevertheless consumer unfriendly thing that sometimes happens. In order to get good handling, some vehicles come with large amounts of camber, either built in or in the camber curve of the suspension movement. This results in irregular wear, sometimes even if the tires are rotated regularly. Needless to say, the vehicle dealer (who is clueless about the cause) points to the tires. But the poor consumer finds out different when his next set (different brand) does the same thing. By then the vehicle is out of warranty.
Another of the more subtle things is that consumers assume (rightly so) that vehicles come from the factory properly aligned. They don't always, and aligning vehicle on an assembly line is very different than on an alignment rack. In particular, I've discovered that every time there is an alignment wear problem, the vehicle alignment is in the outer half of the tolerance. Looking at the alignment tolerances published by the vehicle manufacturers, the tolerances are pretty wide, leading many dealers to say "It's in spec". But that doesn't make it right! If you look at the tolerances for heavy trucks, where tire wear is extremely important to their cost, you'll see my point.
Last but not least is vibration. Some of this is caused by vehicles sitting on dealers lots and the tires develop flat spots. This of course is easily fixed by changing the tires, but this leads a lot of consumers to believe the tires were defective in some way.
This is not helped by the low RR as tire weight hurts RR but helps ride.
Further, the alignment tolerances I mentioned above can sometimes cause irregular wear, which comes out as a vibration or noise. Since a lot of OE tires have low RR, they wear fairly rapidly, aggravating this situation. Replacing the tires makes the vibration go away, and if the tire dealer is smart (and most of them are!), they'll sell an alignment with the new set of tires.
Bottomline - OE tires have to be considered as different tires, even if there is a whole line of tires with the same name, and even between different sizes that go on different vehicles.
Well, Rand... You do have a mis-aligned truck. That is evident from that photo.
I generally don't care for OEM tires period. My previous two mini-vans had Goodyear tires. They had no snow traction. Very pitiful performers. I replaced both. One set was replaced with the Douglas Touring from Wal-Mart. It did very well and was very long wearing.
My current van had Bridgestone EL42 tires. They listed at about $100 per tire on TireRack (IIRC). Very poor performers as far as snow traction goes. I just replaced them with the Goodyear Viva Touring (same tire as Goodyear Regatta but made exclusively for Wal-Mart). They no longer offer the Douglas Touring. They seem fine so far but I haven' tried them in the snow. The Regatta (and thus the Viva Touring) are pretty well rated on TireRack.com.
My current van had Bridgestone EL42 tires. They listed at about $100 per tire on TireRack (IIRC). Very poor performers as far as snow traction goes. I just replaced them with the Goodyear Viva Touring (same tire as Goodyear Regatta but made exclusively for Wal-Mart). They no longer offer the Douglas Touring. They seem fine so far but I haven' tried them in the snow. The Regatta (and thus the Viva Touring) are pretty well rated on TireRack.com.
The Goodyear tires I purchaced over the last 25+ years have all developed the same issues as Bottgers has described. Every set of 4 Goodyear tires that I have purchaced, at least 1 tire have either developed flat spots, or were never really round to begin with or were hard for the installer to balance or it's always something! In each case I had my wheels checked for balance and also to see if the wheels themselves were "TRUE". The wheels were fine in eack case and the tire installer has always detected an issue with the tires. Not so with any other tire brand in my experience.
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