Goodyear unisteel tire failures: what 33 owner reports say
Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Goodyear Unisteel, 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.
The evidence base
Crash, injury and death figures are the counts owners themselves reported to NHTSA when filing.
What owners described
Blowout or sudden deflation appears in 64% of these reports; about 3.2× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 33 reports filed against the Goodyear Unisteel 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 | 64% | 20% | 3.2× |
| Tread or belt separation | 18% | 13% | 1.4× |
| Sidewall failure | 12% | 15% | 0.8× |
| Bubble or bulge in the tire | 6% | 6% | 1.0× |
| Loss of control, rollover or collision | 6% | 8% | 0.7× |
| Pressure-monitoring (TPMS) fault | 3% | 2% | 1.3× |
Mileage at failure
20 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 14,554 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 6,800 and 40,000 miles.
In owners' own words
Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA about Goodyear Unisteel. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.
TIRE SIDE WALL BLEW OUT ON INTERSTATE 95. DAY WAS CLEAR AND SUNNY NO ROAD,HAZARDS. HAD TIRE REPLACED RETURNED TIRE TO GOODYEAR THEY DENIED THE CLAIM CLAIMING IT AS AN IMPACT BREAK. NO IMPACT TO INSIDE DUAL HAD BEEN DRIVING FOR FIVE HOURS ON THE INSTATE WHEN THE TIRE BLEW AND IT WAS DAY TWO OF A THREE DAY TRIP ALL ON INTERSTATE ROADS.
TREAD SEPARATION AND BLOWOUT OF LOW MILEAGE ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT GOODYEAR G670 295/80R22.5 STEER AXLE TIRE WITH PLENTY OF REMAINING TREAD ON 45 FOOT MONACO RV RESULTING IN THE RV LEAVING THE ROAD ON THE SAME SIDE AS THE BLOWOUT OCCURRED RESULTING IN CRASH CAUSING 2 DEATHS AND ONE SERIOUS LEG AMPUTATION INJURY.
UPDATE TO OD ID 8005766. WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET OUR STEERING PROBLEM SOLVED WITH MONACO BUT THEY REFUSE TO DO ANYTHING BECAUSE WE HAVE A LAWSUIT PENDING (THE LAWSUIT DOES NOT ADDRESS THE STEERING PROBLEM). WE RECENTLY LEARNED THAT GOODYEAR HAS A RECALL (PSB#2002-20) ON OUR TIRES, WHICH ONLY HAVE 15,000 MILES ON AND ARE BADLY WORN, BUT MONACO WILL NOT AUTHORIZE THE REPLACEMENT BECAUSE OF OUR LAWSUIT. WE WANT TO UPDATE THIS COMPLAINT SO, IN THE EVENT WE ARE INVOLVED IN AN ACCIDENT WE HAVE ON RECORD THAT MONACO HAS REFUSED TO ADDRESS THIS STEERING PROBLEM.
DT: GOODYEAR TIRES BLEW OUT ON THE FRONT RIGHT DRIVER'S SIDE AND 6 MONTHS LATER THE FRONT PASSENGER'S SIDE TIRE ALSO BLEWOUT. GOODYEAR, 1998, RADIAL TIRES, 245/70R19.5. THE TIRES HAD ABOUT 40,000 MILES ON THEM WHEN THEY BLEWOUT. THESE WERE THE RECOMMENDED SIZE TIRE FOR THE WINNEBAGO. CONSUMER NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEMS BEFORE WITH THE TIRES. THE TIRES BLEW A HOLE ON THE SIDEWALL ABOUT 3 TO 4 INCHES WIDE. THE TIRES WERE REPLACED WITH THE SAME BRAND OF TIRE FROM GOODYEAR. CONSUMER DID NOT CONTACT MANUFACTURER. CONSUMER WAS TRAVELING AT 55-60 MPH WHEN THE TIRES BLEW OUT. *AK
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; 3.2× 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
FAQ
What goes wrong with Goodyear Unisteel tires?
Is the Goodyear Unisteel recalled?
At what mileage do Goodyear Unisteel tires fail?
Have Goodyear Unisteel failures caused crashes?
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.