Firestone wilderness AT tire failures: what 679 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Firestone Wilderness 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

679Written owner reports

25Reported crashes

57Reported injuries

10Reported deaths

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

What owners described

Cracking or dry rot appears in 25% of these reports; about 2.7× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 679 reports filed against the Firestone Wilderness 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
Cracking or dry rot	25%	9%	2.7×
Tread or belt separation	23%	13%	1.7×
Sidewall failure	21%	15%	1.4×
Blowout or sudden deflation	15%	20%	0.7×
Loss of control, rollover or collision	8%	8%	0.9×
Bubble or bulge in the tire	3%	6%	0.5×

Mileage at failure

141 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 20,000 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 5,000 and 56,000 miles.

In owners' own words

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

THE CONTACT OWNS A 1999 FORD EXPLORER EQUIPPED WITH FIRESTONE WILDERNESS AT TIRES, SIZE: P235/75/R15 (NA). WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 60 MPH, THE REAR PASSENGER TIRE BLEW OUT. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO A TIRE SHOP, WHERE IT WAS DIAGNOSED THAT THE TIRE NEEDED TO BE REPLACED. THE TIRE WAS REPLACED. THE MANUFACTURER WAS MADE AWARE OF THE FAILURE. THE APPROXIMATE VEHICLE AND TIRE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 150,000.

NHTSA complaint 1199596

TL- THE POLICE INVESTIGATOR STATED THAT THE VEHICLE, A 1990 RAM VAN 350(X-WAGON) EQUIP WITH FIRESTONE WILDERNESS AT TIRES SIZED P255/70R/16(DOT VDCN1PX-519) WAS TRAVELING BETWEEN 55-65 MPH WHEN THE DRIVERS SIDE REAR TIRE EXPERIENCED TREAD SEPARATION CAUSING THE DRIVER TO LOOSE CONTROL OF THE VEHICLE AND DRIVE OFF THE ROAD AND DOWN AN EMBANKMENT. DURING THE CRASH ALL NINE OCCUPANTS WERE INJURED. THREE OCCUPANTS WERE EJECTED FROM THE VEHICLE RESULTING IN ONE FATILTY. THE POLICE REPORT WAS TAKEN AT THE SCENE. THE VEHICLE WAS DESTROYED AND TOWED. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOT NOTIFIED OF THE INCIDENT. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS NOT AVAILABLE. JFT

NHTSA complaint 1501859

FIRESTONE TIRE ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT ON A 97 MOUNTAINEER, P235/75R15, DOT: VDHL1PY147. WHILE DRIVING 60-65MPH TREAD ON LEFT REAR TIRE SEPARATED, CAUSING VEHICLE TO ROLLOVER. PASSENGER WAS EJECTED FROM VEHICLE AND KILLED. DRIVER SUSTAINED INJURIES. VEHICLE REGISTERED TO: ERIK KENT.

NHTSA complaint 224462

PE00020, TIRE SIZE 25570R16, DOT VDCU1PX, WITH ABOUT 30,000 MILES THE FRONT. BOTH TIRE HAVE CRACKS ON THE TREAD WHICH SEEMS THAT TREAD MAY SEPARATE AND CAUSE A CRASH. TIRE BEEN ROTATED EVERY 3,000 MILES. PLEASE PROVIDE FURTHER INFORMATION.

NHTSA complaint 224643

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; 2.7× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Tread or belt separation; 1.7× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Firestone Wilderness; 1,134 reports
Firestone Steeltex; 708 reports
Firestone ATX; 435 reports
Firestone Steeltex R4S; 219 reports
Firestone Firehawk; 204 reports
Firestone Affinity; 192 reports

All Firestone tire failure analysis

FAQ

What goes wrong with Firestone Wilderness AT tires?

Across 679 written complaints, the most common description is cracking or dry rot, in 25% of reports; about 2.7× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Firestone Wilderness 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 Wilderness AT tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 20,000 miles, with 8 in 10 between 5,000 and 56,000 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

Have Firestone Wilderness AT failures caused crashes?

Owners reported 25 crashes and 57 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.