Firestone steeltex AT tire failures: what 181 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Firestone Steeltex AT, 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

181Written owner reports

17Reported crashes

26Reported injuries

3Reported deaths

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

What owners described

Tread or belt separation appears in 31% of these reports; about 2.3× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 181 reports filed against the Firestone Steeltex AT 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	31%	13%	2.3×
Blowout or sudden deflation	26%	20%	1.3×
Sidewall failure	18%	15%	1.2×
Loss of control, rollover or collision	11%	8%	1.3×
Cracking or dry rot	8%	9%	0.8×
Bubble or bulge in the tire	2%	6%	0.4×

Mileage at failure

54 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 35,000 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 10,000 and 102,172 miles.

In owners' own words

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

THE CONTACT OWNS A 2000 FORD EXCURSION EQUIPPED WITH FIRESTONE TIRES, TIRE LINE: STEEL TEX RADIAL A/T, TIRE SIZE: LT 265/75R16. THE CONTACT STATED THAT WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 60 MPH ON A DIRT ROAD, THE REAR DRIVER'S SIDE TIRE EXPLODED. THE CONTACT PULLED OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND DISCOVERED THAT THE TREAD WAS SEPARATED FROM THE TIRE. THE TIRE WAS NOT REPLACED. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOT NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURE. THE APPROXIMATE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 190,000 AND THE TIRE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 200. THE DOT NUMBER WAS VNW81XL049. DJR

NHTSA complaint 1091820

YESTERDAY ON I4 IN FLORIDA BETWEEN TAMPA AND LAKEFIELD [XXX] WAS CRITICALLY INJURED WHEN A 2000 FORD F350 ROLLED OVER AFTER A REAR TIRE TREAD SEPARATION ON A LT26575R16 FIRESTONE STEEL TEX. HE IS NOT EXPECTED TO SURVIVE.S.C. 552(B)(6).

NHTSA complaint 245173

TREAD SEPARATED FROM SIDEWALL ON WHITE LETTERING SIDE, ALL OTHER TIRES CRACKING ON SIDEWALLS, SPOKE TO MANUFACTURER THEY SAID IT WAS NORMAL, STORE MANAGER SAID IT WAS JUST WEATHERCHECKING. HAVE PICTURES IF NEEDED.*AK (TIRESIZE: 265/75/R16)

NHTSA complaint 274667

I HAD A FLAT SO I HAD ALL TIRES CHANGED AND TECNICIAN FOUND A LARGE BUBBLE ON THE INSIDE OF LEFT FRONT TIRE WHICH CAUSED SIDEWALL TO BE VERY WEAK. FIRESTONE REFUSED TO HONOR WARRANTY STATING IT WAS CAUSED BY ROAD HAZARD. NOT TRUE. TIRE DEFECT. WOULD HAVE CAUSED MAJOR CRASH IF LEFT ON FRONT AND FAILED AT HIGHWAY SPEED. MR

NHTSA complaint 383254

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; 2.3× 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 Steeltex AT tires?

Across 181 written complaints, the most common description is tread or belt separation, in 31% of reports; about 2.3× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Firestone Steeltex AT 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 Steeltex AT tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 35,000 miles, with 8 in 10 between 10,000 and 102,172 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

Have Firestone Steeltex AT failures caused crashes?

Owners reported 17 crashes and 26 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.