Firestone Firehawk Wide Oval AS - garbage.

[pezzy669]

The Goodyear Assurance thread made me want to post a quick review of the Firestone Firehawk Wide Oval AS tires that came on my '11 E350 4Matic which were installed when the car hit the dealer lot.

One word - junk tires. They roar like bad wheel bearings at any speed over 15-20 (bearings and alignment checked out good at my dealer service dept), they lose pressure constantly (filling up 1x per month) and when I went to look at date code (4th week of 2017) yesterday while airing up noticed the rubber around the date code was cracking in spectacular fashion. Couple of the wheels have a good 6-7" strip of weights to balance, will say the one good thing is they don't vibrate at any speeds I have had the car at.

I can't in my good conscious throw out practically new tires but the roaring and monthly trips to QT to add air might override my good conscious in a few months. I never had these issues with Michelins, Continentals or Yokohamas.

 

[skyactiv]

Something most people don't know is that the inner liner is the most expensive part of the tire. That is an area where some tire manufactures selectively cheap out on.
Tires with a thin, cheap inner liner require air to be added more often. Tires used on heavy vehicles like semis, buses, dump trucks.. have a much, much better inner liner than your typical car tire.

 

[Rand]

I'm a believer my first firestones in a long time..

both the 2017 and 2019 cherokee trailhawks came with Firestone Destination AT

245/65r17 tires and they lose psi faster than the tiny 185/65r14 on the accent on 9 year old wheels that have had 3 sets of tires.

I find they lose air at least twice as fast as previous tires I've owned in similar sizes... This is on brand new gear.. They lose air faster than 10 year old alloy wheels with corrosion on them.

 

[RyanY]

I have only had one experience with Firehawk wide ovals. They were about 3 yrs and 40k in but we're as bald as my head. Stiff, loud, and obviously didn't last very long. I then replaced with cooper CS5 Ultras that are much better. The reason I mention this is because I recently noticed that my Coopers have been losing air. I replaced the valve cores and the problem went away.

OP: have you tried replacing the cores? The entire stem should have been replaced when new tires installed, but who knows if they actually were. Replacing the cores is a cheap attempt to reduce the leakage and, in my case, solved it.

 

[k1xv]

As an early boomer, I remember the Firestone 500 debacle, which continued with the 721, and then the Firestone/Ford Explorer mess.

"The name that's known is Firestone, where there's carnage on the road".

I know it is now a subsidiary of Bridgestone these days, but some things never change. I would never buy a Firestone. Ever.

 

[xtell]

I have the Firestone Firehawk Wide Oval Indy 500 tires on my 99 Trans Am. They have been good tires -smooth ride -low noise-good dry grip-good cornering but they are a discontinued tire with a different tread pattern from the ones you have. On the flip side, I had the Firestone 721 tires on a 1978 Catalina -worst tires ever. The belts came through the tread, no traction, could not be balanced. Firestone Steeltex tires on my truck were ok but kinda slippery in the rain and on snow.

 

[novadude]

I put a set of 235/50R18 Firestone Firehawk Wide Oval AS tires on my wifes 2011 Regal when they first came out in ~2015 or so. We only ran them for ~6000 miles or so until she decided to trade the car. I thought they were good tires. Balanced with little weight, great wet and dry traction, no objectionable noise level, and no issues with air loss.

Maybe my opinion would have changed if I had ran them to 25k miles, but I thought they were good for the price.