Cracking or dry rot: which tires owners report it on
Fine cracks in the rubber, usually in the sidewall or between tread blocks. Rubber ages whether or not the tire is driven, so low-mileage tires are not exempt.
How common is it?
Across every NHTSA tire complaint narrative on file, cracking or dry rot appears in 9%. That is the number every row below is measured against: a subject at 2× is one where owners describe this failure twice as often as the corpus average, whatever the total complaint volume.
Where it over-indexes
| Tire or vehicle | Reports describing it | Share of that subject | Vs all tire complaints |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hankook Optimo H725A | 17 | 50% | 5.4× |
| Nissan Maxima | 99 | 49% | 5.3× |
| GMC Acadia | 14 | 42% | 4.6× |
| Buick Enclave | 7 | 39% | 4.2× |
| Honda Ridgeline | 5 | 38% | 4.1× |
| Jeep Commander | 6 | 38% | 4.0× |
| Mercury Milan | 7 | 37% | 4.0× |
| Michelin LTX M/S | 30 | 36% | 3.9× |
| Yokohama Geolandar | 19 | 36% | 3.9× |
| Chevrolet Traverse | 12 | 35% | 3.8× |
| Goodyear Eagle Rs-a | 63 | 35% | 3.7× |
| Mazda CX-5 | 5 | 33% | 3.6× |
| Chevrolet C1500 | 5 | 31% | 3.4× |
| Michelin Latitude Tour | 22 | 29% | 3.2× |
| Hankook Ventus S1 Noble 2 | 21 | 29% | 3.1× |
| Ford Edge | 14 | 29% | 3.1× |
| Goodyear Assurance Fuel MAX | 10 | 28% | 3.0× |
| Michelin Energy LX4 | 18 | 27% | 2.9× |
| Firestone Wilderness AT | 172 | 25% | 2.7× |
| KIA Sportage | 9 | 23% | 2.5× |
| Goodyear RSA | 11 | 22% | 2.4× |
| Goodyear Eagle GT | 7 | 22% | 2.4× |
| Mercury Mountaineer | 52 | 21% | 2.3× |
| Mazda MAZDA3 | 30 | 21% | 2.3× |
| Michelin LTX M/S2 | 9 | 20% | 2.1× |
Ranked by how far the subject sits above the corpus rate, counting only subjects with at least five reports describing this failure.
In owners' own words
Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA about cracking or dry rot across the NHTSA tire-complaint record. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.
NOTICED LARGE CRACKS IN SIDEWALL OF HANKOOK OPTIMO H725A DOT 1GPR DY H 0711 205/55 R16 91H - 2011 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA 45,000 MILES. HAD TIRE REPLACED AT OWN EXPENSE. 9-12-2013 53,000 NOTICED 2 OTHER TIRES NOW WITH THE SAME LARGE CRACKS IN SIDEWALL.
THE CONTACT OWNS A 2009 NISSAN MAXIMA WITH KUMHO ECSTA 4X TIRES, SIZE 245/40/19. THE CONTACT STATED THE TIRE WALLS CRACKED AND WERE CRACKING ACROSS THE TREAD. THE TIRES WERE TAKEN TO A DEALER, WHO STATED THAT THE FAILURE DID NOT CONSTITUTE A HAZARD. THE CONTACT REPLACED THE TIRES. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT TAKEN TO A DEALER. THE MANUFACTURER WAS MADE AWARE OF THE FAILURE. THE VEHICLE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 80,000. THE TIRE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 30,000. UPDATED 8/27/14*CN UPDATED 09/17/2014
WAS DRIVING AND TIRE PRESSURE SENSOR WARNING CAME ON AND WAS SHOWING I WAS LOSING PRESSURE SO SLOWED DOWN IN TIME WHERE THE TIRE WAS COMPLETELY FLAT. VALVE STEM WAS CRACKED AND BROKE OFF. TOOK IN TO GET FIXED AND HE FOUND THAT TWO OTHERS WERE CRACKED SO THEY COULD GO BAD AS WELL. LUCKILY WAS NOT ON HIGHWAY WHEN TIRE DEFLATED.
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.
FAQ
How common is cracking or dry rot in tire complaints?
Which tire has the most reports of cracking or dry rot?
Does a high rate here mean the tire is defective?
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.