Service Experience at Firestone

[Grams]

The day I bought this ‘15 Ram 1500 …I Test drove this truck with the sales-person and found a vigorous front-end “shake’ above 60 mph. Pulled into the local Firestone Auto Center. (This is all in a town 100 miles from my home.)

I asked for a Front end inspected by Firestone …. Good condition was pronounced…but all 4 tires condemned with broken belts.

Bought 4 new Firestone Destination LE3 tires. Roadhazard and Forever Balance also purchased. $1200.
Drove it back to the selling dealer and bought the truck, …but noticed it still had a tire-balance issue on the rears at 65 mph.
Took it to a different Firestone Auto Center closer to home… (about 25 miles away). They replaced the rt-rear tire due to slipped-belt, and re-balanced both rears.

With rears in better shape..the Fronts are now noticeably vibrating from 65 to 70 mph…. So took it back next day to have fronts re-balanced. Also asked for a front-end alignment. (They offer an alignment for $150…. or a “Lifetime Alignment) for $200. I paid for the “Lifetime”.
They pointed out the only thing found out of spec was Toe-In…which they adjusted….and informed me that no caster/camber is adjustable on this truck. No mention of any other issue, and they re-balanced the front tires.

Took it back next day again for Front still having a “mild” vibration at 65 mph.
Now Firestone claims upper and lower control arms, ball joints, and tire-rod-ends need to be replaced.
I told them the FIRST Firestone shop had inspected the front end and found it “in good conditon”…and that THIS Firestone shop had aligned this truck only YESTERDAY….and only mentioned the Toe-IN needing adjustment….. NO MENTION of “tie rod ends” or any other issue with the front-end.

So I called the FIRST Firestone 100 miles away and conversed with and reminded the manager, “Ben”, …that He and His Shop had inspected this front end when selling me tires and found it in “good condition”….and informed him of the second Firestone shop who after 3 visits now condemns the front end.
“What is going on here?”, I asked.

He suggested I take it to a THIRD Firestone shop which is equipped to “Road Force” test the tires…. and that if there proves to BE a “front end rebuild” necessary….that HE would “Make it right” for me at His shop. (No idea what that means.)
Takin it to Firestone number-THREE tomorrow ..to have them road-force checked. Vibration on front felt any speed above 35 mph, but I have a difficult time believing this is due to worn control arms, ball joints, and tie-rods. (Although I’m not a novice and am familiar with front end suspensions and the reputation of Dodge ball joints. I have looked under the vehicle and it Does have 181K miles on it… but it doesn’t display loose or worn bushings, etc.)


We’ll see what transpires tomorrow.

 

[diymirage]

Kinda makes you wonder if it was a good idea to buy this truck

What year and mileage?

 

[Docwagon1776]

but all 4 tires condemned with broken belts.

Stopped reading right there. The only response to that nonsense isn't even to question how in the AF 4 tires had broken belts. It's to point and laugh at the guy, leave, and find a shop who knows what they were doing vs inventing some nonsense to get into your wallet.

 

[Hagar1]

Stopped reading right there. The only response to that nonsense isn't even to question how in the AF 4 tires had broken belts. It's to point and laugh at the guy, leave, and find a shop who knows what they were doing vs inventing some nonsense to get into your wallet.

I have personally witnessed ALL 4 tires with broken / shifted belts. In the case I was involved with, it was Goodyear tires.
We confirmed it by swapping a know good set of tires and wheels on to the vehicle to test. When we ultimately broke the tires off the wheels, they darn near tied themselves into a knot. Tire manufactures will not readily admit to building a bad product.

 

[Grams]

Kinda makes you wonder if it was a good idea to buy this truck

What year and mileage?

Both of those questions were answered in the original post.

I’m not inquiring if purchasing the truck was a good idea. It is My decision to own a second, “spare” truck for use around the ranch, and also as an occasional “loaner” to family members. This truck is in generally better-than-average condition and was favorably-priced. Regardless, I like the truck and it’s now mine.

I’m offering for-discussion my experience using Firestone Auto Centers for general Tire and Suspension service work. Considering no Firestone store is in my local area adds misfortune to the issue, but on the day the truck was initially test-driven in a distant-town… Firestone was the only option available in that locale to make an expeditious inspection and purchase-decision.

@Docwagaon1776 : The “vigorous front-end shake above 60 mph” was correctly diagnosed to be defective tires, … I didn’t find it laughable.

This being a 180K-mile, 4X4 rural sheriff-dept’s truck suggests that off-road, aggressive driving was possible,…. so finding 6-year old tires damaged and in need of replacement was not a surprise. New tires solved that front-end “shake” issue.

My reason for posting a new thread topic is regarding the Firestone Auto Centers…not the Firestone-brand of tires.
Since I was actually “test-driving” the truck, It seemed wise to me at the time to have the front suspension inspected, … the Firestone Auto Centers claim to be expert at both, and was available at the time-and-place.

I’m disappointed that one such store could pronounce the suspension healthy one day…. the next day a different store actually perform suspension-alignment work on the same vehicle …without mention of any worn-suspension components…. but on a third visit in the same week, subsequently declare the suspension completely “worn out”.
It seems to me that the first store either totally failed at their initial inspection… the second store also failed to find defects when they adjusted that suspension…. OR…. the customer is being “sold” un-needed services.

I thought this topic regarding this experience with that company might be of interest to others.

 

[Fast69Mopar]

Both of those questions were answered in the original post.

I’m not inquiring if purchasing the truck was a good idea. It is My decision to own a second, “spare” truck for use around the ranch, and also as an occasional “loaner” to family members. This truck is in generally better-than-average condition and was favorably-priced. Regardless, I like the truck and it’s now mine.

I’m offering for-discussion my experience using Firestone Auto Centers for general Tire and Suspension service work. Considering no Firestone store is in my local area adds misfortune to the issue, but on the day the truck was initially test-driven in a distant-town… Firestone was the only option available in that locale to make an expeditious inspection and purchase-decision.

@Docwagaon1776 : The “vigorous front-end shake above 60 mph” was correctly diagnosed to be defective tires, … I didn’t find it laughable.

This being a 180K-mile, 4X4 rural sheriff-dept’s truck suggests that off-road, aggressive driving was possible,…. so finding 6-year old tires damaged and in need of replacement was not a surprise. New tires solved that front-end “shake” issue.

My reason for posting a new thread topic is regarding the Firestone Auto Centers…not the Firestone-brand of tires.
Since I was actually “test-driving” the truck, It seemed wise to me at the time to have the front suspension inspected, … the Firestone Auto Centers claim to be expert at both, and was available at the time-and-place.

I’m disappointed that one such store could pronounce the suspension healthy one day…. the next day a different store actually perform suspension-alignment work on the same vehicle …without mention of any worn-suspension components…. but on a third visit in the same week, subsequently declare the suspension completely “worn out”.
It seems to me that the first store either totally failed at their initial inspection… the second store also failed to find defects when they adjusted that suspension…. OR…. the customer is being “sold” un-needed services.

I thought this topic regarding this experience with that company might be of interest to others.

I'm my unprofessional opinion it appears to me that your truck, in the diagnostic phase, suffered from 3-tech-itis meaning at least three different techs put eyes on your truck and came up with differing opinions/diagnosis and the fact that all three techs are not on the same skill level when it comes to diagnosing issue like yours.

If it were me I would stick with the store that made the proper diagnosis and establish your maintenance and mechanical relationship with them. It is always a good idea to have a shop that you can go to when you can't work on the truck yourself or you don't have the tools and knowledge.

 

[KenR 955]

I’m disappointed that one such store could pronounce the suspension healthy one day…. the next day a different store actually perform suspension-alignment work on the same vehicle …without mention of any worn-suspension components…. but on a third visit in the same week, subsequently declare the suspension completely “worn out”.
It seems to me that the first store either totally failed at their initial inspection… the second store also failed to find defects when they adjusted that suspension…. OR…. the customer is being “sold” un-needed services.

I thought this topic regarding this experience with that company might be of interest to others.

FWIW,
My dealings with Firestone showed one store to be honest, while 2 others to be dis-honest. So much so, that the district manager needed to get involved to make things right.
Never again Firestone, never again.

YMMV

 

[British Bulldog]

Interested in the outcome of this……, OP, did you ever go to the third shop, for Roadforce balance?

 

[Docwagon1776]

I have personally witnessed ALL 4 tires with broken / shifted belts. In the case I was involved with, it was Goodyear tires.
We confirmed it by swapping a know good set of tires and wheels on to the vehicle to test. When we ultimately broke the tires off the wheels, they darn near tied themselves into a knot. Tire manufactures will not readily admit to building a bad product.

If you have 4 tires with broken belts it's not going to drive fine until 60mph then start shaking all of a sudden. Unless they were just newly installed, the odds of it being symptom free until all 4 had broken is probably on par with winning Power Ball three weeks in a row.

First set of tires was not 4 broken belts. Point, laugh, leave. New tires, maybe they are junk, maybe the underlying issue is still there, but OP got his trousers taken down at the first place.

 

[Hagar1]

If you have 4 tires with broken belts it's not going to drive fine until 60mph then start shaking all of a sudden. Unless they were just newly installed, the odds of it being symptom free until all 4 had broken is probably on par with winning Power Ball three weeks in a row.

First set of tires was not 4 broken belts. Point, laugh, leave. New tires, maybe they are junk, maybe the underlying issue is still there, but OP got his trousers taken down at the first place.

As I have stated in other comments, I'm not here to argue, I know what I saw, whether you want to believe it or not, well, that is up to you. In my line of work at the time I saw all sorts of weird issues.
Every tire a manufacturer makes is not perfect.

 

[Docwagon1776]

As I have stated in other comments, I'm not here to argue, I know what I saw, whether you want to believe it or not, well, that is up to you. In my line of work at the time I saw all sorts of weird issues.
Every tire a manufacturer makes is not perfect.

As best I can tell, we are not arguing. I don't doubt you saw a vehicle with 4 defective tires. I equally don't doubt someone out there has ran grossly underrated tires and damaged all 4. I equally don't doubt that was not the OPs issue based on the symptoms and lack of resolution. All can true without conflict.

 

[Hagar1]

As best I can tell, we are not arguing. I don't doubt you saw a vehicle with 4 defective tires. I equally don't doubt someone out there has ran grossly underrated tires and damaged all 4. I equally don't doubt that was not the OPs issue based on the symptoms and lack of resolution. All can true without conflict.

The tires that I encountered were fairly new Goodyears, only a few months old.
The car was operated fairly often on gravel roads which "might" have been a contributing factor. I suspected tires early on but needed to "prove" them to be faulty and I did this by taking 4 tire and wheel assemblies off a similar vehicle and the shake was gone. I had never seen 4 tires on one vehicle be defective and I haven't seen it since but it can and obviously does happen.

 

[Grams]

If you have 4 tires with broken belts it's not going to drive fine until 60mph then start shaking all of a sudden. Unless they were just newly installed, the odds of it being symptom free until all 4 had broken is probably on par with winning Power Ball three weeks in a row.

First set of tires was not 4 broken belts. Point, laugh, leave. New tires, maybe they are junk, maybe the underlying issue is still there, but OP got his trousers taken down at the first place.

Again, you make assumptions. I was “test driving” a car with which I had no previous experience…. Therefore your assumption it was “symptom free until all 4 had broken”… is …well…a leap.
Your comment is simply wrong. All 4 tires were bad and replacing them was correct.

@ British Bulldog : Thanks for your interest. Here’s what occurred TODAY:
I kept the appointment with the THIRD Firestone Auto Center…. where yet-another of the recently installed tires was found defective during a “Road Force Check”. That tire was on the Left/Front and was replaced. (The previously-found defective new tire was on right/rear.)

The subsequent drive home proved that corrective action resolved the vibration issue. (It’s curious that of 4 new tires,…”Destination LE3”…supposedly a high-grade-model of Firestone’s,… 2 of them would prove defective within a couple hundred miles. However, I suppose That is for what a Warranty is intended.

I had also mentioned to This Third Firestone store the problem regarding a “Left wandering” tendency of the vehicle,….and how Firestone Store #2 had adjusted Toe-In…but claimed Caster/Camber to “not be adjustable” ….

Jesus Ibarra, Manager of store #3, performed another “alignment”…found the toe-in still to be out-of-specification…AND not only demonstrated the Caster and Camber to ACTUALLY BE adjustable on this vehicle…but acutally DID correct it to OEM specification. (Rt Front Camber was significantly out of spec, and both Rt and Lt required minor Caster correction.)
Mr. Ibarra also demonstrated that upper and lower control arms and ball joints are still serviceable…. but both Tie-rod outers were slightly-worn and recommended replacement…. and quoted considerably less $$ than store #2.
The 70-mile drive home was a vast improvement in handling and steering.

I have ordered Left/Right, Inner/Outer Tie Rod kits from MOOG which should arrive in two days, ($180)….and I will replace them myself this weekend …and then, again, take advantage of the “Lifetime Alignment Warranty” at Store #3 next week to confirm my attempt to retain the current Toe-in/out.

My conclusion is that not All Firestone Auto Centers are equal…. nor are all of them as sloppy as #2… or as inattentive as #1.

Mr. Ibarra at Firestone, 6412 S. IH-35 Frontage, Austin, Tx is a (young) recently-promoted store manager, diligent and competent, IMO.

 

[Docwagon1776]

Again, you make assumptions. I was “test driving” a car with which I had no previous experience…. Therefore your assumption it was “symptom free until all 4 had broken”… is …well…a leap.
Your comment is simply wrong. All 4 tires were bad and replacing them was correct.

I understood you were on a test drive. I also understood you said it shook at 60mph. So all 4 tires busted belts, but the truck drove fine until 60mph and they all busted so close together in time and mileage and in such a way that none had visible bulges in the tread or sidewalls and none were causing a low speed vibration by being out of round? That's the symptoms I'm talking about. I find that extremely hard to credit.

I note you're here discussing how the problem was not resolved by 4 new tires and required more parts. Like maybe a worn out and misaligned suspension caused cupping on the tires, which then caused vibration at speed. Like maybe if the first shop's tech knew WTF they were talking about instead of saying all the tires had busted belts they would have correctly diagnosed the underlying issue.

If you're happy with the purchase, awesome, but their diagnosis does not fit what you described and didn't resolve the issue. So, again, I'd say point and laugh and go somewhere who knew what they were talking about.

 

[Grams]

I understood you were on a test drive. I also understood you said it shook at 60mph. So all 4 tires busted belts, but the truck drove fine until 60mph and they all busted so close together in time and mileage and in such a way that none had visible bulges in the tread or sidewalls and none were causing a low speed vibration by being out of round? That's the symptoms I'm talking about. I find that extremely hard to credit.

I note you're here discussing how the problem was not resolved by 4 new tires and required more parts. Like maybe a worn out and misaligned suspension caused cupping on the tires, which then caused vibration at speed. Like maybe if the first shop's tech knew WTF they were talking about instead of saying all the tires had busted belts they would have correctly diagnosed the underlying issue.

If you're happy with the purchase, awesome, but their diagnosis does not fit what you described and didn't resolve the issue. So, again, I'd say point and laugh and go somewhere who knew what they were talking about.

Ok. I see you cannot effectively comprehend and communicate, so I will “click” on your profile and “ignore” you so I won’t be reading your nonsense anymore. Adios.

 

[Docwagon1776]

Ok. I see you cannot effectively comprehend and communicate, so I will “click” on your profile and “ignore” you so I won’t be reading your nonsense anymore. Adios.

Sure showed me.

 

[Dean2]

Ok. I see you cannot effectively comprehend and communicate, so I will “click” on your profile and “ignore” you so I won’t be reading your nonsense anymore. Adios.

Whether you want to admit it or not he is actually giving you solid advice. Four tires with busted belts is very unusual. If it actually had that many bad tires it would show up WAY BEFORE you hit 60. I have had vehicles that had 1 or two defective tires and you knew there was a big problem at 30 mph, by 60 you damn near couldn't hold it on the road.

 

[Grams]

Whether you want to admit it or not he is actually giving you solid advice. Four tires with busted belts is very unusual. If it actually had that many bad tires it would show up WAY BEFORE you hit 60. I have had vehicles that had 1 or two defective tires and you knew there was a big problem at 30 mph, by 60 you damn near couldn't hold it on the road.

I do not know why My Personal Observation and acceptance of their findings with regard to those tires is so controversial to readers….
There’s nothing suspicious with regard to a ten year old truck needing four new tires.
Especially when replacement of all four Solved the sudden-onset-vibration problem.

All I can say in reply is that I was THERE…..and I drove the truck…and it drove fine….until higher speeds …when it rather suddenly began a wild shake. It did not do so below 50. This was not “reported to me”….I personally observed it.

It was then that we pulled into a shop which specializes in tires, brakes, and suspensions - (seemed appropriate at the time) - Firestone….supposedly people who can evaluate tires and suspensions…. and they inspected the Tires …and declared all of them to be defective.

I too was surprised that ALL of them would be bad…so they allowed me to go out into the shop and Demonstrated to me that Each Tire either had an obvious broken/bulged belt …or was visibly out-of-round as it was spun on the axle.
It was Clear all 4 tires needed replacement, and being a 4WD vehicle, it made sense to replace them in pairs…

The fact is, that the problem subsequent to that replacement was only a minor vibration resembling a poor balance-job on those new tires. (which subsequently showed two of the new tires had out-of-round or road-force issues and were warrantied)

When the replacement tires were installed, then it also became evident that a front-end alignment was appropriate.

The subsequent question I had of competence was not in regard to the tires….but in reference to suspension alignment.

 

[nlambert182]

There are a lot of variables with this whole thing. I'll give you some anecdotal experience with Firestone stores (and tires) and some general common sense observations.

The Firestone stores in my area are the absolute worst (we have 4). I've had multiple broken belts that were misdiagnosed (all on Firestone Destination LE tires, which are garbage IMO), had them unsuccessfully perform alignments to a point where I've taken the truck elsewhere after the 4th attempt to straighten the steering wheel, and I've had to take my truck other places to get the tires balanced after Firestone couldn't do it.

For balancing, they once told me they couldn't balance a set of tires that I bought from them because they were too large for their machine. They were stock sized tires.... I took them down to Discount Tire and they road force balanced them on the first shot. They told me they couldn't fix my off center steering wheel because my front end was worn out. That was wrong, and I took it to a competent shop and they aligned it the first try and confirmed the steering components were tight. I have never found a Firestone store with a competent crew. Your mileage may vary, but I don't use them nor do I buy their products.

What Doc said makes reasonable sense. The likelihood of all 4 tires suddenly breaking belts is suspect. I'm not saying it's impossible, but certainly implausible. It could be that they sold you tires with an old date code as well, or that the date code in question was in a date range of a batch of tires with defects. Did you check the dates?

Even one tire with a broken belt would be noticeable even at low speed. If it's only happening at 60mph+ it almost sounds like you have something in the drivetrain out of balance (bad ujoint, unbalanced driveshaft, etc...). If you had some worn components and coupled that with one or two of the other issues I mentioned and then had a bad tire, the issue could compound into what you experienced. Swapping the tires might ease it up a bit for a while.

I'm not questioning your experience... just tossing out some other possibilities.

If it were me in this situation I would a)find a competent tire shop that is NOT Firestone, b)go with a more reputable brand of tire, and c) go to a reputable independent mechanic and let them give it a once over. While Firestone offers other services, their bread and butter are tires and they're a lot less likely to properly diagnose other issues than a reputable shop (even if they say they can) and even less likely to want to take the blame for improperly diagnosing an issue with their truck that they have to eat.

 

[CamperMike]

Glad you got it sorted, and it is weird that you had 2 bad fires or if the new ones. I normally have had good luck with firestone tires, and happen to have destination le3 on mine for about a year. I have not had any failures or vibrations with them and so far think they are a solid highway tire.