Anyone have experience with Firestone Tires ???

thunderstruck · May 19, 2011, 07:26:11 AM

Thinking of installing Firestone's on my bus. FS400's to be exact. Michellin's are way out of control price wise, at over $900 installed. The Firestones are going to be just about $600....

TomC · May 19, 2011, 07:37:54 AM

I looked up the FS400's and they are only made in the 315/80R-22.5-which no matter who you buy them from are probably the most expensive highway tire you can buy. Is your bus that heavy that you need this tire? I would fully load your bus up with water, fuel, and such and weigh it with each axle. Then you can tell if you really need the 315 tires. My guess is that you could go down to a 11R-22.5 16 ply which are MUCH cheaper then the 315 tires. Let us know what weights you come up with, and we can help you more. Good Luck, TomC

luvrbus · May 19, 2011, 07:41:55 AM

TomC he owns a H-45 those suckers are heavy 50,000 + 18,000 on the front axle,fwiw I do see that tire on the H-45 tour buses around Laughlin noticed that yesterday along with the new Goodyear tire that size saw not one Michelin tire on the front

good luck

thunderstruck · May 19, 2011, 07:58:12 AM

315's are standard size. Some H3 owners are upgrading to 365's and 365's are now standard on new H3's. So yeh, I need big tires.

John316 · May 19, 2011, 07:59:53 AM

Welcome aboard, Thunder.

Look at it like this. You have a H3. It is worth how much? (You don't have to say, just get you thinking). And Michelin tires are 900 a pop. If you do any significant amount of driving, I would say dive for the XZA's. Buy two every couple of months, to make it more palatable. We have XZA's on every position, except for the tag (and the shop didn't have XZA's, then). But then again, we put on probably close to 30K a year. If I was sitting a lot, I would go for cheaper ones.

FWIW

thunderstruck · May 19, 2011, 08:01:03 AM

Luvrbus, Do I read you correctly in that you did see the Firestones

luvrbus · May 19, 2011, 08:12:40 AM

Yep there were 3 H-45 with that tire from Gold Coast Tours setting side by side with brand new tires I notice tires here because of the heat you see very few Michelin on the tour buses now could be the cost for some lol.
My friend owns Arrow Stage Lines he won't run the Michelin's any longer he runs the new Goodyear but they are about the same price as a Michelin's

good luck

John316 · May 19, 2011, 08:26:48 AM

Quote from: luvrbus on May 19, 2011, 08:12:40 AM
Yep there were 3 H-45 with that tire from Gold Coast Tours setting side by side with brand new tires I notice tires here because of the heat you see very few Michelin on the tour buses now could be the cost for some lol.
My friend owns Arrow Stage Lines he won't run the Michelin's any longer he runs the new Goodyear but they are about the same price as a Michelin's

good luck

Clifford,

Why won't he run the Michelins? Can you enlighten me? I will go with Goodyears in the future, if they are better.

Thanks,

J

thunderstruck · May 19, 2011, 08:31:18 AM

John316, all good points. I have XZA's all round, front 1yr old, Drives date code 44/04, tags dated 24/05. Either I put 4 Mich. on the drive and run the 6ry old tags for awhile or go for 6 Firestones. Question is do I want to head to Sturgis this summer on 6yr old XZA's. Prevost aside, money is tight in this economy.

BTW the Drives show cracking and Tags don't...

luvrbus · May 19, 2011, 08:45:16 AM

He has always had problems with the Michelin and their warranty so he just stopped using the tire he loves the new Goodyears told me they were holding up excellent with no trouble yet now this a charter service not a RV he runs the 4500 MCI, Setras and Prevost.
I see quite a few Toyo Tires now here in the desert on buses they are not bad about cracking and the drivers say they ride better than others I don't know I have always ran the Toyo with good luck I never had much luck with the Michelin's here always lost the side walls but 115 degrees in Aug will take it's toll on any tire lol

good luck

John316 · May 19, 2011, 08:53:58 AM

Thanks for the tip, Clifford. I will look into them, when we swap the next ones out. We alway have to have good tires. Not to mention, the fact that we weigh in right at the GVWR.

Thunder, no kidding about the economy. The tire prices do hurt, one way or the other.

Don Fairchild · May 19, 2011, 12:30:19 PM

I use firestone FS560 12R22.5 on mine. It is two axle so it lighter but I like them. I put them on last summer and have 16,000 on them. no problems yet.

Don

brando4905 · May 19, 2011, 12:52:45 PM

I got the the Firestone FS560 12R22.5s on the drives and Toyos on the steers, no problems with either.

Busted Knuckle · May 19, 2011, 02:20:06 PM

I'm using the Firestone FS560's all the way around on all our buses now. (some still have Kumho's but as they wear out I'm replacing with the Firestone's)
Why did I quit using Kumho? Because I moved farther away the warehouse I was getting them from and my new tire dealer is hooking me up with the Firestone's mount, balanced and out the door for about $50 ea more than I was putting into the Kumho's after mounting and the old tire shop couldn't balance them! (the new tire shop tried balancing some Kumho's for me and they required way too much weight per tire for 4 out of 6 tires and I switched to Firestone which require little to no weight and the ride drastically improved!)

Don't get me wrong we had great service out of the Kumho's with reasonable warranty results. And they rode decent, but not like the BALANCED Firestone's do.

I agree on the Michelin's if ya got $ to burn buy them! (and hope you don't need that warranty they brag so much about, because it's not worth the paper it's written on!)
Michelin is KNOWN for worming out of the warranty 99% of the time blaming it on the driver or vehicle!
I too like the GoodYear's ride....... but have had warranty issues there too! $800 +/- tire with less than 10,000 miles the side wall blew out and all I got was $200 and it took them 8 months to give me that! (took that long for the district rep to give the dealer the word back that that is what they were doing for me!)

BK

PS. the mate to that GoodYear blew out on the road in AL and the tire shop that came out brought me a brand new Firestone and took one look @ my blown GoodYear and only let me pay for the service call and told me they'd get there $ back from GoodYear for the one that blew! (I have no clue if he did or not as I've never heard either way from him, and it's not near anyplace I frequent to stop in and ask!)

bevans6 · May 19, 2011, 03:10:33 PM

another happy FS560 user here