Every few years there is a defective tire scandal involving Firestone. I remember Firestone 500 tires splitting up the middle in the sixties, Firestone 721, tread separation flying to pieces, Ford Explorer (Exploder) Firestone wrecks etc. I wouldn't own Firestone tires if you gave them to me for nothing. I might ride in a Firestone equipped car on a $1000 bet. If it was no more than 10 miles at 30 MPH.
I agree with Alex. People will always have opinions but have never made there opinions into reality . I have driven my shoebox over 10 years with coker's Firestone deluxe champion whitewall tires and never had a problem . With a experience tire man mounting and balancing these tires you will never have a problem.
The 500 was the mid '70s, and while all the early US-made steel-belted radials were bad (back in the day I remember having multiple GM-spec Uniroyals go all pretzel-shaped from belt separation in what I considered normal use), the 500 was probably the worst. The way it was made allowed the belts to rust inside the tire. The Explorer had problems because Ford specced a 26psi tire pressure (far too low for the tire/vehicle combo and its GVWR, a tire will almost never fail from overinflation but given the right conditions it will always fail from underinflation) so the thing would slide before it got enough grip to tip over. Someone at Firestone (by then owned by Bridgestone) should have said 'no' but no one did. I guess the deal Ford was offering them just looked too big to turn it down. But none of this is really relevant to the tire that Coker's selling as a 'Firestone'.
I just mounted some 5.50x16 ribbed front runners on my A. They have been in my storage room for a year before I mounted them. I was scared as shit reading all the bad comments about them on all the different threads. I have to say the seem great so far. I haven't experienced anything that I thought was abnormal, But I don't have many miles on them yet.. I'll buy more.
Not that it matters at this late date but I remember replacing Firestone 500 tires at a service station I worked at in 1968 - 69. They were nearly new but split open all around the center of the tread. From what you say I take it they were still selling the same defective tires into the seventies.
I was told that the Firestone was not speed rated. When I did some checking on my own I could not verify if that was true. I did buy Dunlap Bias and they are a documented speed rated tire. I personaly think they have a better look than the Firestone. Walter
No experience of their crossplies but I tend to dislike the sorts of compounds traditionally associated with Firestone: too hard-plasticky for my tastes. I prefer the gummier compounds that used to be Michelin but are nowadays more likely Yokohama.
I've had(Coker) BT Goodrich 670x15 and FirestoneCoker) 760x15 on my 29 for 21/2 years. Had the front ones trued and balanced on the car, rear balanced only off the car. Runs smooth with no pull up to 75mph at least. Bias plys are some what squirrely and tend to wanna follow any imperfections in the highway as in the days when they were the only choice. But they look killer and my being 70 yrs. old that's all we drove on 'till the seventies or so.
Nothing wrong with Firestone bias plys. They are safe enough and they handle OK so long as you remember they are based on 60 year old technology. Yes, we blew out a tire or two back in the day. You learned how to deal with it that along with occasional tire thump and poor wet traction. Technology has come a long way since then and without a doubt new tires are better in all respects but bias tires will still do the job.
Tire speed ratings originated IIRC with the European tire regulatory body and prior to sometime around the late 1980s it was unusual to find the speed ratings we're accustomed to now (e.g. H=130MPH, W=186MPH) on a US-made tire. Some of us regard the speed ratings as not just a measure of the tire's speed potential but also of the heat-resistance and general construction quality of the carcass - in this day and age there's little excuse for a modern passenger-car tire that's not at least H-rated for speed. The US DOT standard was 85mph though you had some tires certified by their manufacturers for higher speeds (e.g. cop-car tires typically rated to 125mph.) So any US tire design that predates the wider adoption of tire speed ratings a couple decades ago will not have a current-style speed rating, though it'd be interesting to see some older designs run on the loaded drum test just to see what they can (and can't) take.
i have firestones on my 51. I bought them used and several miles and several burn outs still good. I got one bald as hell tire on there i keep driving it. Not far but i do and no blow outs. So i would say run them.
thats like a girl not waring heals because her feet hurt, my girl wares heals every day so suck it up with your tires ladys
My 670x15 Firestones are pre Coker +15 years old, ride great, running tubes I would buy newer ones except for all the latest crap about Coker problems and being over priced.
The soft compound didn't wear too well but they got you out of the gate better before cheater slicks became the hot lick. When I was working I had a series of blow outs on modern 17" radials Very expensive! All due to scrap metal on the highway. That's not the tires fault! just plain bad luck.
Thanks for all the info, what I've gathered is that nobody has had a blow out and that's what I was wanting to know. Other than steering, balancing issues and all that crap, they are safe and look good.
I am sure that you can, and will find an, or a few examples of blowouts. Of course, this is true for any tire. We've installed dozens of sets of these tires, and watched our customers happily wear them out. We have all of them shaved, and meticulously professionally balanced. Have a few gone down? Sure, but it is very rare, and most often due to external forces, or improper maintenance.
Ok, so now I have peeps telling me Firestone tires (white wall 670-15) bubble easy, side wall where the white meets the black. Again, has anybody heard of this? Not getting a lot of good feed back on this tire. if it's not good, then why do so many people run it? Thanks.
I'm 64. going to be 65 in June and I've NEVER bought a bias ply tire in my life, and I ain't gonna start now! Radials came out on sale to the public the year I was born and there's a reason they are what is used today.
Im only young but when I bought my Chevy (51 sedan) it had radials on it. Swapped them out for bias ply cokers and it seemed to ride better! Never had any dramas, it's my daily or was and will be again. (drove it over 70mph for an hour every day to work and back for two years)
By design, radials are inherently safer than bias tires, as they have better roadholding, hold their shape better, and are also quieter and more durable. There's no reason to run radials on a radial-era car (or any car designed to be used with radials). Aesthetically, there's no reason for bias tires on modern cars, either. On the other hand, I've never seen a radial tire that looked good or proper on a vehicle of the bias tires era. Maybe you could go either way with some mid-60s cars. Maybe there are radials out there made to look exactly like bias tires. I can't recall for sure, but I may have read something about that. If one could have the benefits of a radial in a tire that looked just like a bias, that would be worth considering on an older car.
Firestone has a history of poor tire quality. The problem is that some Firestone tires are good and some are not, even within the same tire name/spec. This causes the consumer to have mixed experiences with the same tire. In manufacturing you are fighting variation constantly and the companies that have good quality products control that variation through design and process controls. Those companies that don't have robust designs or strong process controls invariably produce inferior products and when you talk about tires this is problematic to say the least. Its hard to change the culture of poor quality in a company that has had some success and is as large as a Firestone. Therefore you can flip and coin on buying these products from companies who have a poor quality reputation. You may get a good product or an unsafe one. For me I will play the odds and choose companies products with a good quality reputation.
I bought a brand new SuperDuty, and had a tire fail.... I feel firestones are safe. Whenever a plant or a company has labor problems, as both firestone had with the roll over accidents, and Goodyear had, the real culprit is labor. Firestone went on strike, managers rolled up there white sleeves and started makin tires, shortly after is when the Explorer roll overs happened. Goodyear had same issue's and even with trailer tires. Hankook recalled 80 trailers of tires in the midwest as a result of this as well....
First off the "peeps" that are telling you this stuff about the 670's bubbling on the side walls has this happened to them ? Or is it just hear say bull past on like 85% of the stuff said on the topic . Unless you've had personal experience how can you have a opinion it would be better to just shut the fuck up. Like I've said before I personally have ran 5 sets of 670 firestone tires on my car I've never had this side wall problem I am now on my 6 th set and will tell you about my experience at coker tire last week but it has to wait till later gota go find a new dog
firestone doesn't evan manufacture the tires in question so I don't get it? I think folks should know what there talking about before anything is said
The only tires that I'm concerned about is the Firestone 670-15, not the RADIAL tire Ford put on the Explorer, just the 670-15 BIAS PLY. I don't want to know the history on Firestone, I just wanted some input on this specific tire. Thanks.
The Jalopy Journal
