Rick had his inner wall of his bridgestone tire blow out at 80 MPH. He will post more info later, but wanted me to give a heads up for those of you with these tires to check them. he and the car are fine.

kinda misleading title - is his blowout part of a nationwide epidemic of tire blowouts or just one tire that might have just reached the end of its life?

kinda jumpin the gun here dont ya think?Should i go out and check the dueler at's on my pickup?

Or he hit a piece of debris or something. I'm glad that he's ok.

Rick was unable to get online, so he called me and asked me to post & let you guys know. He's recommended the tires he has to many people, and wanted to let you guys know that you may want to inspect your tires to make sure they are ok, just in case. If you choose not to, fine. The title's not misleading, he asked me to let you guys know what happened as a word of warning. Firestone has had problems in the past, who knows if this is another one or not.

Sorry about the lack of info in the first post, I was on the road back home from Corpus Christi, and had my friend get online and type a short post for me. I couldn't believe we had internet from Houston to Corpus...

Hitting any kind of debris at 80mph can cause a blowout.

I'll obviously wait until I've got more information to make a judgement but I can list a pile of reasons a tire could go on the highway and none of them have anything to do with the manufacturer.

I won't say it is tire brand fault. Blown tire thing happened. He probably ran it over during 80 mph. He is lucky to be alive.

i agree with palsut, theyre not gonna make a crappy tire, a spare is suppose to make it around 80 mph....

Not going to make a crappy tire? Man, Firestone has had more than one problem with crappy tires.

Look, what does it hurt to inspect your tires? If you don't want to do it, fine, but you're not out anything if you do.

At least he wanted to make sure you guys would be ok.

Oh, and if you go 80 on a spare, you are asking for trouble. The recommended max speed isn't nearly that fast. Check you facts.

From the owner's manual: The compact
spare is made to perform well at speeds up to 65 mph
(105 km/h) for distances up to 3,000 miles (5000 km)

read it and wheep

M 81 mph 130 km/h
N 87 mph 140km/h Temporary Spare Tires
P 93 mph 150 km/h
Q 99 mph 160 km/h Studless & Studdable Winter Tires
R 106 mph 170 km/h H.D. Light Truck Tires
S 112 mph 180 km/h Family Sedans & Vans
T 118 mph 190 km/h Family Sedans & Vans
U 124 mph 200 km/h
H 130 mph 210 km/h Sport Sedans & Coupes
V 149 mph 240 km/h Sport Sedans, Coupes & Sports Cars

Source?

interwebzzzz, well of course thats not the GM manual but its from Tire Rack.com

I just returned from a 2200 mile trip in my GP with Bridgestone LSH tires. I ran 75-80 about 80% of the trip. The car was LOADED with 4 people and luggage. Tires were at 35 PSI Cold. They look great after my trip.

Yes Firestone had some issues, but it was a deal they and Ford had about the Explorer recommended pressures. Most of those can be attributed to low inflation. As a former tire installer, I will tell you that 80% of people NEVER check their tire pressure until someone says, "Hey, your tire looks low". We here on the board are different as we are all car people, not the norm.