Goodyear tyres and tyre guarantee
 

Returning to a topic that has been raised here before.

Knocking any hint of budget tyres into the long grass, two and a half years ago I put two Goodyear Asymmetric Eagle 5 tyres on the front of my 75.

Due to massively reduced mileage due to the pandemic I had done less than 6,000 miles on the new tyres during that time and was rather horrified to see quite significant cracks round the whole diameter of the outside tread of both tyres plus substantial cracking all around the little cut out bits at the extreme edge of the tyre pattern on one of them.

Chuck into the mix that despite having had a 4 wheel alignment done about the time of the tyre change the outside tread is down to 4.6mm and central treads to about 5mm after such a short milage and its fair to say that I'm less than impressed with Goodyear tyres.



For the first time in my motoring life of over 40 years I rang up the tyre company just to express how disgusted I was with the quality of their tyres.

I was passed through to a nice enough chap in their customer service dept who said ' Don't worry sir you've got a 5 year guarantee on our tyres send me some photos' ( Don't know If I have successfully managed to upload the pictures on here sorry)

To be honest I hadn't known that and had only rung up to let the company know what I thought of their product.

But the stinger is as has been discussed on here before any guarantee refund is based on the wear of the tyre which as I have pointed out its not my fault that I'm also not happy with the wear rate of the tyres also which would reflect in any refund offer.

So having sent my photos off to Goodyear I receive a phone call this morning off the same guy telling me that if I wish to return my tyres to them they will assess the tyres and decide whether to give me any money back.

As I pointed out not only would that mean me forking out £160 with no guarantee of anything coming back under guarantee, any potential payment would be based on the poor wear of their tyres anyway.

I took out the Richer sounds 6 year guarantee on my TV and 3 years later when dots started appearing on the screen they came out and replaced the screen. They didn't ask how many hours of watching I'd put in and then offer to fund half the price of repair. They repaired it too as new serviceable condition.

So to say that I think that Goodyear tyres are a load of rubbish can be a given ( I appreciate that others may have a more positive experience) but the tyre guarantee nonsense that their customer service were so proudly and patronisingly initially trumpeting is a joke as well in my view.

Message over.

My father always used top grade Goodyear tyres until the early 80's, when he had a steering/suspension problem with them - they didn't want to know, claiming any problem must be with the car. He put 2 new Firestone on the front and the problem disappeared. So he never used Goodyear again, and I haven't either. Does not look as if their "customer service" has improved , even after 40 years!

I hope their airships are made of better material!

Well I have used Goodyear tyres on 3 x 800, 1 x 75 Saloon and now on the 75 Tourer in all over 28 years and not had any problems of life or wear.

Check the manufacture date of yours

It’s only been 4 months but my car has new Goodyears on the front and they grip and handle better than the Avons they replaced.

I worked at Goodyear in the late nineties when production was being wound down. I’m sure that some batches of tyres from the various countries where they are made are below standards we knew years ago.

It’s now a bit hit and miss. The only brand I see with consistent quality is Michelin.

Just one more point.
Your guarantee begins the day you purchase the tyres and not the production date on the tyre wall. Not your fault if the tyres are sat in a warehouse for 6 months before being sold.
More silica and less rubber means tyres perish more quickly.
It’s also being applied to tyres on commercial vehicles which will not pass an MOT if the tyres are over a certain age. Safety reasons which is perfectly understandable.

They were brand new on the DOT

That is a shame, I’ve always had very good experiences of Goodyear but must admit I haven’t used them for a number of years. Last set of decent tyres I bought was Yokohama’s for my 4x4 and they have been faultless. 25k and 4 years later they still have plenty of life but I suppose they can’t really be compared with proper summer tyres. Best of luck with your claim if you go ahead

Thank you but there's the rub isn't it?

As I explained to the bloke over the phone, with the scenario that they've put me in, to claim off their laughable guarantee I'd have to fork out £160 + for two new tyres up front and then wait to see if they decide to give me any money back based on tyre wear so they might

a) Not give me any money back

b) Give me a pathetically low £50 - £60 refund towards the total cost of my new tyres based on the rubbish tyre wear of the originals

c) Even just make a token gesture of £20 or something


Either way I'm £s out of pocket.


When I mentioned to the Goodyear bloke that basically I am in now in a position that I now have to drive round for some time with these cracks to get at least a few thousand more miles out of them before writing the whole thing off as a bad waste of money and that his company had put me in a very poor position he said that there were many layers to a car tyre and that it was unlikely to be unsafe.

I'm just pootling about locally at the moment so I feel that I won't be replacing the tyres straight away but I'm not very happy to be put in this position ( I will certainly ditch them instantly if I get more concerned at any time about the cracking) but I will certainly get rid well before what I would consider to be the normal decent economic and tyre depth wear point.

I've actually got a one year newer one on the back as well as I thought that I'd standardise my tyres all round so I'm a bit cheesed off about that as well. No cracking on that one yet but the tyre wear is already much worse than I had expected for what should have been a reasonable quality tyre and the colour of it looks washed out and shabby

In contrast to a two year older Apollo on the other back wheel which to be fair
has been reasonably impressive in terms of tyre wear with no hint of any cracks and despite doing far higher mileage has far less wear. I have been monitoring all the tyres wear and immediately noticed that the rear Goodyear was wearing far faster and outstripping the wear depth on the two year older Apollo anyway as a direct comparison.

So I can only conclude from that example that the Apollo is a far superior tyre as I certainly have not had any handling, wear or cracking concerns with that one. In fact the Apollo which is part of the same group as Vredistein and made in Hungary although Indian owned, looks in much better condition all round appearance wise.

The Goodyears front and back had looked a bit washed out and very light grey, almost scruffy after a short while in appearance anyway which attracted my attention whilst the Apollo still looks jet black and and as I say in much better visual condition than all the Goodyears.


So no more Goodyears ever for me and I'll ditch the ones I've got as soon as I can or at any time before that if further concerned about their condition.

I think you ought to have the tracking checked again just to be sure things won't get worse during this period. Your first photo shows both cracking around the tread periphery and what looks like tracking scuff on the outer blocks.They could be related.

https://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/for...2&d=1624883483
TC