Firestone FR680 tire failures: what 91 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Firestone FR680, 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

91Written owner reports

2Reported crashes

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

What owners described

Tread or belt separation appears in 25% of these reports; about 1.9× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 91 reports filed against the Firestone FR680 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	25%	13%	1.9×
Blowout or sudden deflation	22%	20%	1.1×
Sidewall failure	21%	15%	1.4×
Loss of control, rollover or collision	13%	8%	1.6×
Cracking or dry rot	8%	9%	0.8×
Bubble or bulge in the tire	7%	6%	1.1×

Mileage at failure

40 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 25,000 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 3,000 and 95,000 miles.

In owners' own words

Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA about Firestone FR680. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.

PE00020; TIRE TREAD SEPARATION: WHILE DRIVING ABOUT 65-70 MPH, TREAD SEPARATED FROM THE FRONT DRIVER'S SIDE TIRE. DRIVER KEPT CONTROL OF THE VEHICLE AND WAS NOT INJURED. VEHICLE RECEIVED A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF DAMAGE. TIRE SIZE 1856514, ORIGINAL TIRE EQUIPMENT ON A 98, HONDA CIVIC. TIRE MILEAGE AT 35,900. PLEASE LIST DOT # IF POSSIBLE.

NHTSA complaint 228475

ORIGINAL TIRES ON TOYOTA, SIENNA 1998 WITH 24,000 MILES, MODEL FR680, AND TIRE SIZE 20570R15. 3 OUT OF 4 HAVE STARTED TO BULGE AND SEPARATE. CONSUMER TOOK VEHICLE TO FIRESTONE, AND DEALER WAS TOLD THEY WILL PRORATE THE TIRES. PLEASE PROVIDE FUTHER INFORMATION.

NHTSA complaint 229751

PE00020, TIRE TREAD SEPARATION: FRONT TIRE ON THE PASSENGER'S SIDE IS SHOWING SIGNS OF TREAD SEPARATION. TIRE HAS A CRACK WERE THE TREAD MEETS THE TIRE, ALL AWAY AROUND. TIRE SIZE 21570R15. ORIGINAL TIRE EQUIPMENT A 2000, VENTURE. TIRE MILEAGE ABOUT 24,000. FIRESSTONE WAS SENT AN E-MAIL ABOUT THE TIRE. PLEASE LIST DOT # IF POSSIBLE.

NHTSA complaint 237078

I WAS DRIVING ON A HIGHWAY AT ABOUT 50 MPH AS THE REAR PASSENGER TIRE BLEW OUT, I LOST CONTROL OF THE CAR, SWERVED OVER A LANE THEN OFF THE HIGHWAY, HITTING THE CURB AND ENDING UP IN A GRASSY AREA. THE POLICE ARRIVED AND COURTESY PATROL ARRIVED TO ASSIST IN CHANGING THE TIRE. THEIR OBJECTIVE WAS TO IMMEDIATELY GET ME ON MY WAY, SO THE COURTESY WORKER THREW MY TIRE INTO THE TRUNK AND I LEFT. WHEN I GOT TO THE TIRE STORE WE EVALUATED THE TIRE AND 40% OF THE TIRE HAD SEPARATION. THE CAR HAS MAINTENANCE DONE EVERY 3000 MILES, SO TIRES WERE ROTATED AND PROPERLY INFLATED.

NHTSA complaint 237381

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

Tread or belt separation; 1.9× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Loss of control, rollover or collision; 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

All Firestone tire failure analysis

FAQ

What goes wrong with Firestone FR680 tires?

Across 91 written complaints, the most common description is tread or belt separation, in 25% of reports; about 1.9× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Firestone FR680 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 Firestone FR680 tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 25,000 miles, with 8 in 10 between 3,000 and 95,000 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

Have Firestone FR680 failures caused crashes?

Owners reported 2 crashes 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.