Firestone affinity tire failures: what 192 owner reports say
Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Firestone Affinity, 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.
The evidence base
Crash, injury and death figures are the counts owners themselves reported to NHTSA when filing.
What owners described
Blowout or sudden deflation is the most common description, in 22% of these reports. Percentages are shares of the 192 reports filed against the Firestone Affinity 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blowout or sudden deflation | 22% | 20% | 1.1× |
| Sidewall failure | 17% | 15% | 1.2× |
| Tread or belt separation | 15% | 13% | 1.1× |
| Cracking or dry rot | 15% | 9% | 1.6× |
| Loss of control, rollover or collision | 6% | 8% | 0.7× |
| Bubble or bulge in the tire | 4% | 6% | 0.6× |
Mileage at failure
93 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 20,300 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 4,500 and 49,993 miles.
In owners' own words
Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA about Firestone Affinity. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.
FIRESTONE AFFINITY TIRE FAILED DO TO MALFUNCTION IN TIRE SIDEWALL. I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS IS CONDITION OR RESULT OF ROAD HAZARD. CRACK OR DAMAGE IN TIRE SIDEWALL RESULTED IN COMPLETE DEFLATION IN MATTER OF SECONDS. CONCERNED THAT THESE TIRES ARE UNSAFE.
PE00020; AFTERMARKET 15 INCH TIRE WITH ABOUT 8,000 MILES, P20570R15. WHILE DRIVING AND TRAVELING 50-60 REAR DRIVER'S TIRE SEPARATED, CAUSING THE DRIVER TO LOSE CONTROL OF VEHICLE AND CAUSE A ROLLOVER. DRIVER SUSTAINED INTERNAL INJURIES TO HEART. PREVIOUSLY, VEHICLE PULLED TO RIGHT A YEAR AGO. PLEASE PROVIDE FURTHER INFORMATION.
RIGHT REAR TIRE CENTER TREAD SEPARATED WHILE TRAVELING AT HWY SPEED OF 70-75 MPH; WITH DRIVER AND TWO CHILDREN PASSENGER IN A 1999 TOYOTA SIENNA (ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT; DOT# UNAVAILABLE; P215/65R15) NO INJURY REPORTED, BUT REAR WHEEL& REAR END DAMAGES RECEIVED. PLEASE PROVIDE ANY FURTHER DETAILS:
WHILE BEING TOWED A TIRE EXPERIENCED A BLOWOUT CAUSING THE BELT OF THE TIRE TO WRAP AROUND THE INNER WHEEL SUPPORT AND HAD TO BE CUT TO REMOVE THE TIRE, TIRES HAVE BEEN REBALANCED TWICE, TRUED AT LEAST TWO TIME AND THE VEHICLE STILL RIDE HARD AND NOISY (FIRESTONE AFFINITY 215/60R). NLM
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
- Cracking or dry rot; 1.6× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
- Firestone Wilderness; 1,134 reports
- Firestone Steeltex; 708 reports
- Firestone Wilderness AT; 679 reports
- Firestone ATX; 435 reports
- Firestone Steeltex R4S; 219 reports
- Firestone Firehawk; 204 reports
FAQ
What goes wrong with Firestone Affinity tires?
Is the Firestone Affinity recalled?
At what mileage do Firestone Affinity tires fail?
Have Firestone Affinity failures caused crashes?
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.