Wynnewood, PA - Bridgestone/Firestone

by Todd
(Philadelphia PA )

I live in the Philadelphia PA area. I bought a new Toyota Camry XLE V6 with Bridgestone Turanza EL400-02 as original tires. To my surprise, when I got my car inspected with 20100 miles on it - ALL four tires needed replacing!

When I took this to my Wynnewood PA Bridgestone/Firestone dealership, the man told me that since the tires that come with the car are not made as good as the tires he has (and this same tires have a 50k warranty) that I was out of luck and had to pay for them

Is this a true statement or is the tire dealer trying to get out of giving me 4 new tires which would be due to a defect?

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Hello Todd,

Your story is a shocker and it would be hard for me to take too, however, there are several bits of information that might make the dealer's story credible.

In my experience, I've found most manufacturers to be quite liberal in responding to customer complaints and if the dealer felt he had a chance of having the manufacturer replace your tires, or even get a discount, he would have taken advantage of that to gain you as a new customer.

The fact that you've not mentioned that the dealer tried to give you some special deal to gain you as a new customer, would lead me to suspect that maybe he saw evidence that your tires had been subjected to abusive use, or -- alternatively -- the salesman who spoke with you just wasn't very sharp and didn't care about getting a new customer.


If you've read a few of the articles here on Tire-information-world.com, you might have noticed that we are constantly harping about checking tire pressure and inspecting your tires. From what you've told me, it seems that perhaps you hadn't been inspecting your tires and checking the pressure at least once a month.

If you are running your tires with less pressure than is required, you can completely ruin a set of tires in a very short time. You can also have problems with too much pressure. Keeping the right pressure is essential to getting maximum tire life.

If you had been doing this, it would not have come as such a surprise that your tires were needing to be replaced so soon, and possibly you might have been able to take some preventative steps to make them last a bit longer.

This, is a big maybe, because I know nothing about they way you drive, your driving conditions, the kind of roads you have to travel, and a pile of other things ... all I can suspect is that if you'd known after one or two months that your tires weren't wearing in a "normal" fashion, there are things that might have been able to improve the situation such as adjusting your tire pressure, correcting balance or other mechanical problems, alignment, and rotation of your tires.

There are also different grades of tires. One of the things most evident of this is the Treadwear number which is stamped on the sidewall. I don't know what the Treadwear rating is of the modle of tire which you have is, but if it is, for example 100, and the tire the dealer was offering you had a rating of 300, then the dealer's tire could conceivably last 3 times longer than the original equipment tire.

Another thought: Have you spoken to the dealer who sold you your new car? Especially if you had been doing the routine maintenance with them, it might be possible that you have some grounds to have them respond to your situation.

Perhaps it is too late to get satisfaction for your current situation, but possibly this might serve to alert you to things that you can watch for that will prevent similiar situations in the future. If you don't feel that the Bridgestone dealer was giving you the straight goods, try a GoodYear, Michelin or Khumo dealer and raise some of the points I've mentioned. Find a dealer you feel comfortable with and stick with them, I'm sure you'll come out ahead in the long run.

At the least, I hope you'll read our article on car maintenance and follow the advice there.

Best wishes,

TG