BigCat44

In response to a thread posted here (somewhere) I decided to take a look at my RSAs to be sure mine weren't cracked or cut. I found one bad tire. I took it to the Goodyear rep and they confirmed and replaced my tire for $75 (17k and a little wear) tire arrived today and when they went to install and rotate my other tires, they found 2 more tires with very bad cuts on the insides. This is something I did not check for but you might want to make sure to look at when inspecting your tires. Also my dealer performed the moonroof recall glass replacement and finally after me bringing them the TSB for the hard shift they updated my ECU and TCU. The dealer called me back and thanked me for the documentation stating his lead tech had never heard of that TSB before???

maximage

Y aknow, as soon as I mentined my Glovebox TSB, the service writer acted indifferent. When I got my Max back from first oil change and "supposedly" fixed Glovebox alignment, it wasn't till the following day (day light) that I could tell from marks on the glove box are that they "attempted" a repair (with a felt pad).
I called back and got the same SW. I explained they didn't fix the box and apologectically, the SW said they are out of stock of the bumpers and will order the set for. Should be a few days.
Sorry, but I don't know if this guy is BS'ng or truly the repair parts are short supply. I went through this with VW and they did have shortage as repairs were numerous on coil pacts.
Anyonce confirm glovebox TSB issues? I mean, I TOLD them week in advance of the visit. I even gave them the TSB #. SW feel that "customer knows more than he" is joke.
If they don't fix it, I told him I'll do it. SW replied, it won't be under warranty if you fix it. (Um duh. I'll get it right the first time!)

jackconly

I had the same problem with the glovebox -- like every other 6th gen owner, it seems. After getting no satisfaction with two dealer attempts at fixing it, I went to my local hardware store and picked up a rubber bumper like you would use on the bottom of, say, table top appliances, and it did the trick!

Mike_TX

Well, BigCat ... glad you got the tire thing fixed, but I feel you paid too much. I had 21,000 miles on my tires (7/32 on tread remaining two and 8/32 on the others), and I paid only $25 apiece to get them replaced. And only two of mine actually had the splits.

I asked them to check and see if they were all from the same batch and when they checked the numbers on the tires, they confirmed they were. I told them if the other two weren't split now, I had to assume it was just a matter of time until they were.

Note - the dealer gave me only a so-so deal ... about the same as yours, which is just a pro-rated treadwear charge. I pushed them to call the Goodyear rep and see if he'd cut me some more slack, since this is a known problem. He called me back and said Goodyear said to charge me $25 each and to replace all the tires. The point is that the "main office" of Goodyear will cut you a better deal, but you have to push the dealer to get it done.

Mike

BigCat44

Mike thanks for the reply. When measured I had 6/32 left of tread and the dealer calculated the price based on his price. You got a hell of a deal!! I'll talk to the dealer next week when the tire gets here and try to get what you got but I don't forsee him giving me something like that. Did you ask to speak directly to the rep himself? Maybe I can do that and see what he says? I'll keep you posted.

Mike_TX

No, I didn't talk directly to the rep, although I offered to. Fortunately for me, my dealer was actually willing to go to bat for me.

I'd say if you can talk to the rep yourself, you probably can get more concessions. Goodyear knows at the corporate level that there are some bad RSA's out there and they're apparently anxious to make them right and avoid bad publicity. Many of the dealers, though, don't have the full skinny and can't cut the price like corporate can, anyway.

Keep pushing, and get all four replaced so you know you have the problem addressed.

Mike

hitman

everyone check your tires for sidewall cracks. I did and went to a Discount Tire who talked to Goodyear for me and told them I didn't want these crap tires back on my car. Even though I was at 24K miles and 7/32 left they finally offered me $120 per tire towards any tires they sell at Discount. I know I didn't get any deals from Discount on the tires I bought I'm still happy with the deal.

JiuJitsuThug

iTrader: (1)

hitman - You did the right thing by getting rid of those Goodyear RSA's. They are the biggest piece of overpriced V rated crap I have ever ridden on. I had the same split and replaced all of mine with Yokohama Z rated tires. Good luck with everything!

Viper1

I was changing the engine oil today and one thing led to another and I ended up rotating the tires on my Maxima. Good thing I did, the two tires on the driver’s side have splits on the inside sidewall.

The question is, would I be better off going to the car dealer to resolve this or a Goodyear store? It was mentioned that these tires are known to have split problems. Has this been documented anywhere? I would love to print that out and take it with me.

Mike_TX

It's my understanding the car dealer will just tell you to go to Goodyear, since the tires aren't covered under the car's warranty.

Again, though ... go to your Goodyear dealer and ask him to call the Goodyear rep about this. The dealers mostly don't know about this (or don't admit to it) and will maybe offer you a pro-rata treadwear adjustment. That's a pretty fair deal, but I'm telling you the Goodyear rep will cut you
an even better deal. The dealer offered me replacement of all four tires for about $385. After the Goodyear rep was called (and came out and looked at the tires), he told them to charge me $25 a tire. Big difference.

Mike

Viper1

Mike TX,

Thanks for the information, I printed out everything I could find in the forum and I am going to take it to the Goodyear dealer. I really want to get a different tire from them such as the Eagle F1 GS-D3 . I read some positive reviews about these tire. Maybe I can get a credit toward them, the retail price is close. I will let you know.

Viper1

BigCat44

Mike,
spoke to the goodyear dealer here today and he spoke with the goodyear rep. The rep says he has heard of no problems with the RSAs but is willing to give me the same deal on new tires..basically with the current treadwear he'll sell them to me for 95.00 mounted and balanced. I was thinking of just running to Discount tire and selling them back and changing the tires all together but I am busy getting ready to buy a house in San Antonio and don't have the time or money to haggle with anyone plus I am dealing with other TSB problems and the dealer right now. Should I go ahead and get the other 2 tires replaced under the goodyear terms or wait until a split causes a major blowout then sue the **** out of Goodyear???

bradshaw46

I recently replaced the tires on my 04 SE at 36K miles with some Bridgestone Potenzas. Three of my four tires had the sidewall splitting - two on the inside wall and one on the outside wall. I started to go to Goodyear to complain and see what I could get, but ultimately decided no to. Figured I wouldn't get much from them anyway since most of the tread was gone. Since most tires have roughly a 40K mile treadlife, I simply cut my losses (and thanked the Lord I didn't have a blowout for 36K miles) and replaced all of the tires myself. I hated the RSAs anyway, so it wasn't a huge deal for me. While I'm not a huge Bridgestone fan either, I must say that the performance of the Potenzas is *worlds* better than the Goodyears.

Viper1

I just came back from the Pembroke Pines Goodyear Auto Service Center. I want to tell you all that I am more than satisfied with the way they handled the problems found on my RSA tires.

This past Monday morning I visited my local Goodyear, I spoke to someone there and told him I had two tires with inner sidewall splits and showed him the threads printed from the Maxima.org forum. He stated that only the Area Manager could do better than pro-rating on defective tires. I had to go to work so I left my number. Mike Ore the Area Manager called me later that morning; I explained again, I had splits in two of my tires and if they are from the same batch I would like them all replaced. I also stated that it was mentioned in the Maxima.org forums that the Goodyear Corporate Rep was doing better than just pro-rating the tires. He made an appointment with me to see him on Thursday and mentioned that he was aware that I was interested in replacing the tires with something different. He also asked for the web address for this forum.

Today, Mike had the car put on the lift and had all the tires carefully inspected. They found one more tire that had splits in them. He called the Corporate office and spoke to someone there and was able to give me a better deal then just pro-rating the tires. They gave me a whopping credit of $834.86 toward new tires. I put that amount toward 4 Eagle F1 GS-D3 , (I already put 50 miles on them and I am very impressed with these tires)

In closing, Mike Ore and Goodyear did what it took to take care of some bad OEM tires. They stood up, took responsibility for a problem and did more than expected. That say a lot about a company and they earned my business.

PS.
Knowledge is power, keep Maxima.org strong.

Viper1

Mike_TX

BigCat, I don't know what to tell you. There's a post following yours (from Viper1) saying he got an excellent deal similar to mine when he pressed the dealer to call the corporate rep.

If you feel you've exhausted your options with Goodyear, $95 for $275 tires based on 6/32 treadwear isn't the worst deal I've seen, and a helluva lot better than risking your life. But you might consider one more call to Goodyear ... their headquarters in Akron, Ohio. The number is (330) 796-2121. I'd wager you'll get some action if you're willing to spend some money on a long-distance call!

Good luck and let us know what you find.

Mike

maximage

So,
Are these issues "just" with the Goodtear, I mean Goodyear RSA tires? Is there a model number? What is the code on th sidewall?

I have less that 5K on my Goodyears and didn't notice any cracks (not that I was looking) while I was washing 'er.

When did y'll purchase your cars? Late 03? 04? Month? I wonder if its just a bad batch (like Firestone). Perhaps Goodyear understands and will nip this before someone gets injured. Or worse. Maybe its a design flaw. Or material/manufacturing problem.

Remember: the tires from the car manufacturer/dealer are "B" grade. Tires you get from tire reseller are A grade; much better, I'm told. Good luck!

Mike_TX

I can't say for sure, but I believe it is just a "batch" problem with the Goodyear RSA's, and it probably has been corrected.

I bought my SE in October 2003, and in fact, it had a build date of 10/03.

Mike

huong

I notice the sidewall was cracked on one of my flat tire but didn't think nothing of it until now. Thanks guys now I am going to the dealer to see if they can see anymore cracks in the other tires while they replace my recall skyview.

maximage

No cracks on the outside of mine. Anyone take photos of theirs?

E-

04SEelite

Here is a photo of the problem as posted by Mike_TX



You can read the entire thread here: http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....light=goodyear

maximage

Wow! That is such a hard find (a hairline across the sidewall). Amazing! Well, I got my car in July so...hope they fixed it. Rotation is in another 3 months so I'll have it looked at.

Great photo! Thanks!

Viper1

This is a photo of a crack on the inside sidewall.



Viper1

04SEelite

This problem makes me wonder if our tires are retreads?? Will be having it checked at the next oil change at the dealer - or maybe just a stop at my local Goodyear store...

JiuJitsuThug

iTrader: (1)

So funny that Goodyear denies not knowing about this problem with the RSA's. LOL! There are posts all over other tire forums about this same problem - not just on this forum. I will never buy another Goodyear tire again...

msoemax

Viper1, Those tires look new, how many miles on them? There seems to be a lot of tread on there from the pic.

Mike_TX

Well, this will probably get me flamed, and I'm not trying to defend Goodyear, BUT ...

... if you've ever been in the business world, you understand that Goodyear has only a couple of options: they can go all nuts and tell the newspapers and the 10:00 News and all the consumer groups that they have a big hairy problem out there, OR they can quietly and quickly try to take care of their customers and not get everyone all in a twit over it.

Face it - there have not been a bunch of catastrophic failures of these tires, or we'd all have read about it in the papers and seen it on the news. Remember the Firestone/Ford Explorer blowout/rollover stories all over the news awhile back? While we think this could be a safety hazard, none of us has really had a near-death experience with them. In fact, up to now, it's more of a cosmetic problem than anything, and we just want to get our money's worth, don't we?

If Goodyear thought this was a big deal - and made a big deal of it on the TV news - every flake in the country would come crawling out of the cracks, and ambulance chasers would be filing suits and a big class-action would be right around the corner. Instead, they are taking care of the problem as it appears, and I figure they are closely studying the tires they get back from the dealers. In my opinion they are being very fair about the way they're handling it with customers.

Now, if these tires really start causing problems - like crashes - you can bet Goodyear will shift things into high gear and issue a full-fledged recall. But to do so before a problem is actually known is corporate suicide. All we know here on the org is that a relatively small number of us have had this problem. We therefore have no reason to believe it is a widespread, serious problem, and is likely something they've already corrected.

I'm not slammin' you personally, and if you don't want to buy Goodyears ever again that's your choice, but I think Goodyear is dealing with the issue in a businesslike way.

Mike

Viper1

msoemax
The tires had 14K on them. That was the rear tire, the fronts were a bit more worn, heavy foot and lack of rotation.

Don't flame me also, I am happy how Goodyear treated me.

Curiously, I did a search on the NHTSA website and found 4 complaints over the years (different sizes) and 2 under the 2004 Maxima. Not knowing how many tires have been made or Maximas, it would seem to me a small percentage of problems. We, 32,469 registered members of Maxima.org, are pretty **** about our cars and we notice things.



Regardless of what the dealer says, this thread pretty much tell you what to say and do. Knowledge is power.

SkItZoSkAmZ

I recently had a peice of sheet metal puncture my drivers side rear tire.....After I had read about reports of the tire issue. I had all my tires checked and non were defective. Needless to say, they tried to repair the punctured tire, but to no avail. I had to pay $385 for a new tire....Needless to say when I need new tires for all the wheels, I'll definately go with something a lot cheaper.

SSurfer

"
Which forums?? I need ammo before going to goodyear. Thanks!

Law520

How do you like your Yokohama Z rated tires?

joemax1

maybe its because you have an SL, not an SE. I've been reading all these posts about the tire cracks but I havent seen one from somebody with an SL. Maybe because we have a different tire. Mine is Conti. but I hope we wont have that problem with our tire.