Goodyear marathon tire failures: what 115 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Goodyear Marathon, 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

115Written owner reports

1Reported crashes

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

What owners described

Blowout or sudden deflation appears in 52% of these reports; about 2.6× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 115 reports filed against the Goodyear Marathon 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	52%	20%	2.6×
Tread or belt separation	11%	13%	0.8×
Sidewall failure	11%	15%	0.8×
Bubble or bulge in the tire	11%	6%	1.9×
Loss of control, rollover or collision	5%	8%	0.6×
Cracking or dry rot	3%	9%	0.4×

Mileage at failure

54 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 5,000 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 1,500 and 28,000 miles.

In owners' own words

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

THE CONTACT OWNS A GOODYEAR, TIRE LINE: MARATHON, TIRE SIZE: 230/7.5R16 TIRES. THE CONTACT STATED THAT THE TIRED TREAD SEPARATED PREMATURELY. THE CONTACT MENTIONED THAT THE FAILURE OCCURRED SIX TIMES AND EACH WITH DIFFERENT TIRES. THE MANUFACTURER WAS MADE AWARE OF THE FAILURE. THE TIRES WERE REPLACED. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 5,000. DR

NHTSA complaint 1068044

OUR NEW MONTANA FIFTH WHEEL CAME EQUIPPED WITH GOODYEAR MARATHON ST 235/80 R16 LOAD RANGE E TIRES. WITHIN 7 MONTHS OF PURCHASE AND WITH 4500 MILES ON THE TIRES, WE HAD A COMPLETE TIRE FAILURE WITH THE ENTIRE TREAD BEING BLOWN OFF WHILE DOING 60 MPH ON A CLEAR INTERSTATE WITH NO ROAD HAZARD. WE HAD CHECKED THE TIRE PRESSURE THAT MORNING AND HAD THE RECOMMENDED 80 PSI AS ADVISED ON THE TIRE. ONE DAY LATER, ANOTHER OF THE SAME GOODYEAR TIRES WOULD NOT HOLD AIR AND WE WERE ADVISED BY A GOODYEAR DEALER THAT THIS WAS ALSO "BELT FAILURE." WHILE HAVING THESE 2 TIRES REPLACED, THEY DISCOVERED ANOTHER MARATHON TIRE HAD FLAT AND BOWED OUT AREAS TO THE TREAD. THEY ONLY HAD 2 TIRES FOR REPLACEMENT. THESE WERE NOT GOODYEAR TIRES. WE HAD TO TRAVEL AND PURCHASED 2 MORE REPLACEMENTS NON GOODYEAR TIRES. WE DID NOT HAVE AN ACCIDENT BUT THERE WAS DAMAGE TO OUR CAMPER.

NHTSA complaint 1095105

THE CONTACT OWNS A 2010 JAYCO EAGLE RECREATIONAL VEHICLE. THE VEHICLE IS EQUIPPED WITH GOODYEAR MARATHON TIRES, SIZE ST/235/AOR16 (NA). WHILE DRIVING 60 MPH, THE FRONT PASSENGER SIDE TIRE BLEW OUT. THE TIRES WERE REPLACED BY AN INDEPENDENT MECHANIC. THE DOT NUMBER AND VIN WERE UNKNOWN. THE APPROXIMATE VEHICLE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 54,000. THE TIRE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 4,000.

NHTSA complaint 1099058

THE CONTACT OWNS A 2015 FOREST RIVER CARDINAL EQUIPPED WITH GOODYEAR MARATHON TIRES, SIZE: ST235/80/R16 (NA). WHILE DRIVING 60 MPH, THE REAR DRIVER SIDE TIRE BLEW OUT AND DAMAGED THE DRIVER SIDE OF THE CAMPER. THE FRONT DRIVER SIDE TIRE HAD BUBBLES. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO A PRIVATE MECHANIC WHERE THE TIRES WERE REPLACED. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURE. THE TIRE AND VEHICLE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 3,000.

NHTSA complaint 1246889

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

Blowout or sudden deflation; 2.6× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Bubble or bulge in the tire; 1.9× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Goodyear Eagle; 308 reports
Goodyear Wrangler; 286 reports
Goodyear Eagle Rs-a; 181 reports
Goodyear Wrangler SRA; 140 reports
Goodyear Eagle LS-2; 88 reports
Goodyear Marathon ST; 56 reports

All Goodyear tire failure analysis

FAQ

What goes wrong with Goodyear Marathon tires?

Across 115 written complaints, the most common description is blowout or sudden deflation, in 52% of reports; about 2.6× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Goodyear Marathon 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 Goodyear Marathon tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 5,000 miles, with 8 in 10 between 1,500 and 28,000 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

Have Goodyear Marathon failures caused crashes?

Owners reported 1 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.