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Tread or belt separation: which tires owners report it on

The tread and steel belts peel away from the carcass while the tire is still holding air. It is the failure behind the largest tire recall in US history, and it usually arrives without warning at speed.

By Mark Bishop · Last verified 2026-10-07

How common is it?

Across every NHTSA tire complaint narrative on file, tread or belt separation appears in 13%. 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 vehicleReports describing itShare of that subjectVs all tire complaints
Firestone Steeltex R4S 92 42% 3.1×
Nankang Mission 12 40% 3.0×
Kumho Road Ventures 13 37% 2.8×
General Grabber AW 14 36% 2.7×
Chevrolet Express 14 35% 2.6×
Cooper Discoverer H/T 24 33% 2.5×
Cooper Discoverer ATR 12 33% 2.5×
Ford Aerostar 12 33% 2.5×
Chevrolet Express 3500 5 31% 2.3×
Firestone Steeltex AT 56 31% 2.3×
Buick Park Avenue 8 31% 2.3×
Goodyear Wrangler HT 15 30% 2.2×
Oldsmobile Silhouette 12 30% 2.2×
Chevrolet Suburban 82 29% 2.2×
Firestone FR480 23 29% 2.2×
Chevrolet K1500 5 29% 2.2×
Ford F150 11 29% 2.2×
GMC Savana 6 29% 2.1×
Chevrolet Silverado 2500 40 28% 2.1×
Isuzu Rodeo 15 28% 2.1×
GMC Suburban 24 28% 2.1×
Firestone Steeltex 197 28% 2.1×
BCT Hi-run 9 26% 2.0×
Mercury Villager 6 26% 1.9×
Chevrolet Silverado 3500 14 26% 1.9×

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 tread or belt separation across the NHTSA tire-complaint record. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.

BLOW OUT AND TREAD SEPARATION ON A 2000 FORD E-350 AMBULANCE WITH PATIENT ON BOARD. AMBULANCE IS OWNED BY HOSPITAL. I HEARD THAT THIS MODEL OF TIRE IS ALSO UNDER INVESTIGATION. FEEL FREE TO CALL, THANKS. (TIRESIZE: 225/75R16)

NHTSA complaint 256690

THE CONTACT OWNS A 2007 (NA) SUNLINE TRAVEL TRAILER. THE VEHICLE HAS NANKANG MISSION TIRES, SIZE ST/205/75/R15 (NA). THE CONSUMER NOTICED THAT ALL FOUR TIRES, INCLUDING THE SPARE, HAD ABNORMAL TREAD SEPARATION. THE CONTACT IMMEDIATELY REPLACED ALL THE TIRES AT THE COST OF $596.12. HE SENT THE MANUFACTURER THE TIRES ALONG WITH ALL OF THE SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS PERTAINING TO THE FAILURE. THE TIRE COMPANY SENT THE CONTACT PARTIAL REIMBURSEMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF $224.59. HE STILL HAS PICTURES OF THE FAILED COMPONENT. THE FAILURE AND CURRENT MILEAGES WERE 6,000. UPDATED 12/11/08. *LJ THE TIRES ALSO LOST AIR. UPDATED 12/11/08.

NHTSA complaint 696307

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

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 tread or belt separation in tire complaints?
It appears in 13% of all NHTSA tire complaint narratives. Individual tires vary widely around that figure, which is what the ranking on this page measures.
Which tire has the most reports of tread or belt separation?
Ranked by rate rather than raw volume, the Firestone Steeltex R4S sits highest: 92 of its written reports describe it, 42% of that subject's narratives, about 3.1× the corpus rate. Complaint volume also tracks sales volume, so rate is the fairer comparison.
Does a high rate here mean the tire is defective?
No. NHTSA does not verify complaints, and a report is one owner's account. A high rate means owners of that tire describe this failure more often than owners of tires generally; a signal worth knowing before you buy, not a finding of defect.

Sources

Last verified 2026-10-07 against the sources below.

  1. NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation; owner complaints dataset (unverified owner reports, US federal government work, public domain).
  2. NHTSA Recalls database, nhtsa.gov/recalls.
  3. Corpus baselines computed over 58,390 complaint narratives longer than 200 characters.