Kumho road ventures tire failures: what 35 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Kumho Road Ventures, 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

35Written owner reports

2Reported crashes

5Reported injuries

1Reported deaths

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

What owners described

Sidewall failure appears in 46% of these reports; about 3.1× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 35 reports filed against the Kumho Road Ventures 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	46%	15%	3.1×
Tread or belt separation	37%	13%	2.8×
Blowout or sudden deflation	17%	20%	0.8×
Bubble or bulge in the tire	17%	6%	2.9×
Cracking or dry rot	6%	9%	0.6×
Loss of control, rollover or collision	6%	8%	0.7×

Mileage at failure

29 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 20,000 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 5,668 and 54,000 miles.

In owners' own words

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

KUMHO KL78 245/75R16 LOAD RANGE E TIRE. PURCHASED A SET OF KL78 TIRES IN NOVEMBER 2011 FOR MY 3/4 TRUCK. SINCE THE TIME OF PURCHASE I HAVE PUT LESS THAN 20,000 MILES ON THE TRUCK / TIRES. THREE OF THE TIRES HAVE DEVELOPED LARGE DEFORMATION ACROSS THE TREAD CAP, LIKE A BULGE. THIS IS A MANUFACTURING SAFETY DEFECT CAUSED BY THE SEPARATION OF STEEL BELTS OF THE TIRE ALLOWING THE RUBBER TO DEFORM.

NHTSA complaint 1084463

CATASTROPHIC SIDEWALL FAILURE IN TIRE WHILE TRAVELING IN TRAFFIC AT 50MPH. DRIVER SIDE REAR TIRE COMPLETELY FAILED AND UPON REMOVAL- NOTICED SIDEWALL SPLIT. UPON IMMEDIATE INSPECTION OF PASSENGER REAR TIRE, NOTICED SAME SPLIT IN SIDEWALL OF TIRE, WITH FAILURE IMPENDING. 55.000 MILETIRES HAVE 31000 MILES- ROTATED NORMALLY, AIR PRESSURE AS PER RECOMMENDATIONS. MAIN PROBLEM- THERE ARE 2 MORE TIRES ON THE FRONT- SAME MANUFACTURE AND MAKE- CLASSIFICATION RATING.

NHTSA complaint 1198553

THE CONTACT OWNS A 2002 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 2500 HD EQUIPPED WITH KUMHO ROAD VENTURES A/T TIRS, SIZE 245/75 R16 (NA). WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 60 MPH, THERE WAS A VIBRATION COMING FROM THE REAR PASSENGER SIDE TIRE. THE CONTACT DECREASED THE SPEED TO 10 MPH AND THE REAR PASSENGER SIDE TIRE BLEW UP. THE TIRE WAS REPLACED WITH A SPARE AND THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO AN INDEPENDENT MECHANIC. IT WAS DIAGNOSED THAT THE TREAD SEPARATED. THE TIRE WAS REPLACED. ALSO, WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 60 MPH, THE REAR DRIVER SIDE TIRE BLEW UP. THE TIRE WAS REPLACED WITH A SPARE. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURES. THE APPROXIMATE VEHICLE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 184,000 AND THE APPROXIMATE TIRE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 14,000.

NHTSA complaint 1241766

KUMHO TYRES ON MY CHEVY SILVERADO DEVELOPED SIDEWALL SPLITS DUE TO DRY ROT. TYRES ARE ONLY 1 YEAR OLD AND HAVE 26,000 MILES ON THEM. THEY DID NOT WANT THE DOT NUMBERS. CONTACTED KUMHO AND THEY SAID THEY WEREN'T CONCERNED. MY AUTO SHOP SAID THE TYRES WERE UNSAFE TO DRIVE AND REPLACED THEM. THE INDIFFERENCE AND RUDENESS OF THE KUMHO CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSON CHARLES AND HIS SUPERVISOR WAS APPALLING. ABSOLUTELY NO CONCERN THAT THIS COULD CREATE A POTENTIALLY FATAL TYRE FAILURE. VERY DISTURBING AND QUITE A SURPRISE.

NHTSA complaint 825179

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; 3.1× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Tread or belt separation; 2.8× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Bubble or bulge in the tire; 2.9× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index
Kumho Solus; 60 reports

All Kumho tire failure analysis

FAQ

What goes wrong with Kumho Road Ventures tires?

Across 35 written complaints, the most common description is sidewall failure, in 46% of reports; about 3.1× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Kumho Road Ventures 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 Kumho Road Ventures tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 20,000 miles, with 8 in 10 between 5,668 and 54,000 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

Have Kumho Road Ventures failures caused crashes?

Owners reported 2 crashes and 5 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.