Dunlop grand trek tire failures: what 57 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Dunlop Grand Trek, read and classified: which failures owners actually describe, how that mix compares with all tire complaints on file, and at what mileage the tire let go.

By Mark Bishop · Last verified 2026-10-07

The evidence base

57Written owner reports

8Reported crashes

7Reported injuries

Crash, injury and death figures are the counts owners themselves reported to NHTSA when filing.

What owners described

Tread or belt separation is the most common description, in 18% of these reports. Percentages are shares of the 57 reports filed against the Dunlop Grand Trek across every vehicle it was fitted to that include a written account; a single report can describe more than one problem, so they do not total 100%.

Reported problem	This subject	All tire complaints	Relative
Tread or belt separation	18%	13%	1.3×
Loss of control, rollover or collision	18%	8%	2.1×
Blowout or sudden deflation	16%	20%	0.8×
Sidewall failure	14%	15%	0.9×
Cracking or dry rot	5%	9%	0.6×
Premature or uneven wear	5%	1%	4.0×

Mileage at failure

32 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 17,215 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 8,126 and 40,000 miles.

In owners' own words

Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA about Dunlop Grand Trek. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.

TIRE TREAD SEPARATION FROM TIRE AT HIGH SPEED SIMILAR TO THAT REPORTED ON FIRESTONE TIRES ON THE NEWS. THOUGHT THIS INFORMATION WOULD BE HELPFUL IN YOUR DATA BASE. NOT SURE I HAVE THE DOT# CORRECT. CAN CALL AT 713-527-6382 TO CONFIRM.

NHTSA complaint 232244

BOTH FAILURES WERE BLOWOUTS WHILE TRAVELING ON INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS AT APPROX. 75 MILES PER HOUR. THE FIRST FAILURE IN 1998 WAS IN THE EARLY EVENING ON INTERSTATE 45 IN HOUSTON TEXAS. THE LEFT TIRE BLEW WITH NO WARNING. THE TREAD SEPERATED AND THE TIRE WAS TOTALLY DESTROYED. A NEW TIRE WAS INSTALLED. THE SECOND FAILURE WAS ON INTERSTATE 285 IN ATLANTA GA. AGAIN THE TIRE FAILED INSTANTANEOUSLY AND HAD TO BE REPLACED. THE TWO REMAINING TIRES ARE IN NEED OF REPLACEMENT WITH 49000 + MILES. ONE OF THE TWO TIRES THAT WERE INSTALLED ARE STILL ON THE CAR. IT IS ON THE FRONT. EVER SINCE THEY WERE INSTALLED THE VEHICLE HAS HAD A VIBRATION. ONE OF THE ORIGINAL TIRES IS STILL ON THE VEHICLE AND THE SPARE IS IN USE. I WILL HAVE TO REPLACE THE ORIGINAL SOON. IF YOU HAVE ANY DESIRE TO SEE IT YOU MUST RESPOND SOON.

NHTSA complaint 241759

A TIRE PICKED UP A SCREW WHILE DRIVING. VEHICLE TAKEN TO A TIRE CENTER, AND TECHNICIAN INFORMED CONSUMER THAT TIRE WAS UNABLE TO BE REPAIRED DUE TO BLISTERS AROUND SIDEWALL ON INSIDE OF TIRE. DUNLOP WAS NOTIFIED. FEEL FREE TO PROVIDE ANY FURTHER INFORMATION.

NHTSA complaint 368793

LEFT REAR TIRE TREAD SEPARATION ON 2001 TOYOTA SEQUOIA ON INTERSTATE 10 AT 70 MPH. IT WAS ORIGINAL TIRE INSTALLED BY THE MANUFACTURER. CAR MILEAGE WAS 34,400. DUNLOP GRAND TREK AT21, P265/70/R16. DAMAGES TO CAR $1590.00. TIRE WAS THE CAUSE OF ACCIDENT, AND THEREFORE NOT COVERED BY INSURANCE. DEMAND REIMBURSEMENT OF DEDUCTIBLE AND FREE REPLACEMENT OF FULL SET OF TIRES.

NHTSA complaint 512612 · 1997 vehicle

How to read this

Complaints are voluntarily submitted to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation and are not verified by NHTSA. They are owner-reported problems, not proven defects, and volume tracks how many of a tire were sold as much as how often it failed. What is comparable is the mix: which problems owners describe here versus across every tire complaint on file. That comparison, the mileage distribution and the mode rankings on this page are our analysis of the public record.

Related analysis

Loss of control, rollover or collision; 2.1× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Dunlop SP Sport; 94 reports
Dunlop SP4000; 66 reports
Dunlop Sport; 35 reports

All Dunlop tire failure analysis

FAQ

What goes wrong with Dunlop Grand Trek tires?

Across 57 written complaints, the most common description is tread or belt separation, in 18% of reports; about 1.3× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Dunlop Grand Trek recalled?

Complaints are not recalls. A complaint is a voluntary, unverified owner report; a recall is an official campaign requiring a free remedy. Check the current recall status by DOT date code at the NHTSA recall lookup; that is the only authoritative answer for your specific tire.

At what mileage do Dunlop Grand Trek tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 17,215 miles, with 8 in 10 between 8,126 and 40,000 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

Have Dunlop Grand Trek failures caused crashes?

Owners reported 8 crashes and 7 injuries when filing. NHTSA publishes these as reported and does not verify them.

Sources

Last verified 2026-10-07 against the sources below.

NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation; owner complaints dataset (unverified owner reports, US federal government work, public domain).
NHTSA Recalls database, nhtsa.gov/recalls.
Corpus baselines computed over 58,390 complaint narratives longer than 200 characters.