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Goodyear’s G159 tires made for large recreational vehicles (RVs) seemed to be a good buy for many consumers when they first came out. After all, Goodyear has been around for a long time and many consumers trust the name. The company began marketing them in 1995/6, but began to have failures with several different RV manufacturers on various types of Class A motor homes about a year or two later. The tire’s failure has left many consumers frustrated and nervous to use the product.

What has Goodyear done about this?

We asked Rick Morrison, an attorney in Alabama who specializes in tire defects to tell us what Goodyear has done about this. According to Morrison, “So far, Goodyear has done very little. With some of the Fleetwood models, they have done a limited recall. They took the 275/70 and replaced it with another Goodyear model called the 295/90. Now those are just numbers, but they’ve just replaced the tire with another tire that’s more appropriate for RVs. They also did a technical service bulletin (TSB) in 2002 with the Monaco Windsor models and they did the same replacement program. They replaced the 275/70 with the 295/80. So, they’ve done limited recalls and limited replacement, but they need to do a whole lot more because I know of accidents that are occurring daily with this tire which have led to injuries and death within the last few months.”

What type of RVs use these tires?

According to Morrison, several types of RVs use these tires. “Basically, large RVs use these kinds of tires. They’re called the Class A RVs – the Monacos and the Fleetwoods. The Monacos have seven or eight different models. Fleetwood also has seven or eight different models such as the Holiday Rambler. However, generally speaking, we’re talking about the large Class A motor homes – the ones that weigh 33,000 pounds that you see at a football game or during the summer when a family rents one for vacation.

Unfortunately, Goodyear itself and several engineers will acknowledge that a tire’s two worst enemies are heat and speed. This particular tire’s problem is that it was never designed, nor should have been placed on these large RVs that were going to be used at highway speeds and particularly during the summertime.

So, if you rented an RV with these tires, you would think it was ok. In fact, if you go to the owner’s manual, this tire would be recommended for these large RVs. When in fact, Goodyear no longer markets or sells this particular tire for the RVs. It’s got another tire called the 670 that they started marketing in 2000 that was specifically designed for RVs.”