Goodyear RSA tire failures: what 49 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Goodyear RSA, 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

49Written owner reports

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

What owners described

Sidewall failure appears in 33% of these reports; about 2.2× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 49 reports filed against the Goodyear RSA 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
Sidewall failure	33%	15%	2.2×
Blowout or sudden deflation	31%	20%	1.5×
Cracking or dry rot	22%	9%	2.4×
Bubble or bulge in the tire	16%	6%	2.8×
Loss of control, rollover or collision	12%	8%	1.5×
Tread or belt separation	4%	13%	0.3×

Mileage at failure

40 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 22,000 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 10,000 and 69,049 miles.

In owners' own words

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

GOODYEAR EAGLE RSA 225/45 17R TIRES THAT CAME WITH THE CAR WHEN WE BOUGHT IT NEW. COMPLETELY WORN OUT IN 18,000 MILES. INSIDE SIDEWALLS WERE CRACKED AND HAD BULGES. (BREAKDOWN OF CORDS) TALKED TO VW ABOUT THIS AND THEY SAID IT WASN'T COVERED UNDER WARRANTY. THEY TOLD US TO TAKE IT IT TO A TIRE STORE BECAUSE IT WASN'T THEIR PROBLEM. WENT TO AMERICA'S TIRE STORE (LIVERMORE, CA) AND THEY WERE GOOD ENOUGH TO CALL GOODYEAR ON THE DEFECT. THEY PRO-RATED THE TIRES (I THINK WE GOT $25 OUT OF IT) AND RECOMMENDED CONTINENTAL CONTITOURING CONTACT 225/45 17R. THESE TIRES ARE WARRANTED FROM CONTI FOR 55,000 MILES! THE PRICE WAS THE SAME AS THE GOODYEARS. OUTSTANDING TIRES! DON'T BUY YOUR VW NEW WITH GOODYEARS! GET THE MICHILENS IF YOU CAN.

NHTSA complaint 427795

I HAVE A 2003 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA GLS 1.8T SPORT EQUIPPED WITH GOODYEAR RSA TIRES, SIZE 245/45 R17 H91. THE TIRES HAD ONLY 16,000 MILES ON THEM. AT HIGHWAY SPEED THE DRIVERS SIDE TIRE BLEW OUT. FURTHER INSPECTION OF THE TIRE SHOWED THAT IT FAILED AT THE SIDE WALL. THERE WAS A TEAR IN THE SIDEWALL ALMOST THRU 40 PERCENT OF THE TIRE. I MANAGED TO MAKE IT OVER 3 LANES OF TRAFFIC AND NARROWLY OVERTED A COLLISSION. FUTHERMORE GOODYEAR DECLINED TO HONOR MY WARRANTY CLAIM. I THINK THAT GOODYEAR RSA MODEL TIRES SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED. THESE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HIGH PERFORMANCE TIRES AND ONE FAILED AT THE SIDEWALL WITH ONLY 16,000 MILES ON IT AND AT ONLY 60 MILES PER HOUR.

NHTSA complaint 437587

ALL FOUR TIRES EXPERIENCED TREAD SEPARATION. THE CONSUMER IS CONCERNED THAT MAY CAUSE A SEVERE BLOWOUT WHILE DRIVING. *AK *NLM SERVICE MANAGER NOTED HE HAS SEEN OTHER FAILURES LIKE THESE AND THERE MAY BE A TREND.

NHTSA complaint 440690

TWO OUT OF FOUR TIRES HAD BULGES COMING OUT OF THE SIDEWALLS AFTER LESS THAN 14,000 MILES. TOOK THEM TO GOODYEAR AND THEY BLAMED IT ON ME. THEY SAID THE PLYS DELAMINATED BECAUSE I WAS RUNNING INTO TOO MANY POTHOLES (WHICH I WASN'T). I'VE NEVER HAD A TIRE DO THIS BEFORE. I THINK THE RSA'S ARE AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN AND A SERIOUS INVESTIGATION NEEDS TO BE INITIATED ON THESE TIRES, ESPECIALLY THE LOW-PROFILE VERSION. MY TIRE SIZE IS P215/50VR17, AND CAME STOCK ON MY 2003 MITSUBISHI ECLIPSE GTS.

NHTSA complaint 446508

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

Sidewall failure; 2.2× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Blowout or sudden deflation; 1.5× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Cracking or dry rot; 2.4× 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 Marathon; 115 reports
Goodyear Eagle LS-2; 88 reports

All Goodyear tire failure analysis

FAQ

What goes wrong with Goodyear RSA tires?

Across 49 written complaints, the most common description is sidewall failure, in 33% of reports; about 2.2× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Goodyear RSA 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 RSA tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 22,000 miles, with 8 in 10 between 10,000 and 69,049 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

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.