Complain about a product or service

Yokohama

We received this from Yokohama:

As the supervisor of a the Yokohama Tire Consumer Affairs Department, I came across your website while doing research. It is terribly disappointing that consumeraffairs.com does not research the claims by customers before posting the information to the website. Your motto is "Knowledge is power!" but knowledge of incorrect information is misinforming your readers and in turn makes your website look bad. Perhaps you should consider researching the claims posted by consumers so that you can CORRECTLY inform your readers.

Nathan Ortega

It's very disappointing to find a company so disconneced from its consumers that it thinks they shouldn't be able to post comments in a public forum without someone else's approval. Mr. Ortega does his company a great disservice.

Cindy of Palmetto FL (07/01/08)
A tire delaminated on the interstate as my son was headed to his senior prom. At 70 mph he lost control of his vehicle. It rolled over and was totaled but the passengers lived.

The tires had less than 12,000 miles on them and were in near-perfect condition. The trooper at the accident, several mechanics, a tire dealer and an expert forensic engineer said there was nothing wrong with the tire.

Yokohama behaved horribly from the outset, lied and went out of their way to be difficult. We seent the tire back to them and they performed an objective evaluation. Of course it was all our fault. They even said there was a puncture.

What they did not know was that I had hired an engineering firm to investigate & document the situation and that their report was very incriminating to Yokohama. When I told them and asked for the return of my tire to verify their claims, they stalled, evaded and eventually only returned the rim!

The lies kept coming and eventually they said the tire was lost and they would pay for the truck. ANOTHER LIE! 2 yeats later, despite losing the evidence, they have not done anything but beat us down.

Javad of San Jose CA (06/19/08)
This past weekend, after graduating from college, my daughter and her aunt were traveling on California Interstate 5 when the passenger-side tire, a Yokohama AS430, blew out. It was a miracle that no accident happened. The whole wall on the tire broke open. The tire had less than 15,000 mile on it. I have a digital picture of it; it's pretty scary. I have contacted the shop where I bought the set of tires from, but have not heard back from them yet. However, based on what I have read on this site, I am not holding my breath that the shop or Yokohama will fess up to any problem. No more Yokohama tires for my family and friends!

Hank of Palm Springs CA (06/12/08)
I have had good experiences with two sets of Yokohama tires on my 2001 GMC pu that now has 196k. The first set were Avid touring. The second set are Avid TRZ which are now in need of replacement. They have become a little noisy on smooth freeway asphalt so I probably will go back to the Avid touring. In the first couple of months of owning the TRZ's I had 3 immediate flats caused by rotten valve stems from the tire dealer. The tires had no damage from this sudden air loss and are still on the truck after 60k.

Greg of Birmingham AL (05/10/08)
I purchased 4 Yokohama tires from tirerack.com for my Mercedes SLK. Within 6000 miles, the sidewall of the right rear tire began to fail, forming a bubble which causes an imminent blowout. The tires still look brand new, have never hit anything (ground clearance in an SLK is 4 inches...you would wreck the car first), never drove at excessive speed. This is a weekend car that gets about 3000 miles PER YEAR.

Tirerack has refused to reimburse me for the tire(s), saying that it must have been something I did to the tire to damage it.

Tirerack says that I can, at my own cost, ship the tire back to them and they will inspect it, and if THEY think there is a problem, they'll send it to Yokohama, who will also inspect it, and who will, entirely at their disgression, decide if they will reimburse me. Tirerack continued to insist that I did something to damage this tire, WITHOUT EVEN SEEING IT!!!! They simply don't care, obviously, if they sell defective tires.

What a joke. Essentially, what is clearly a manufacturing defect is not covered by either Tirerack or Yokohama. So, this is my last purchase of Yokohama tires, and my last purchase from tirerack.com Be aware: Yokohama is selling defective tires, tirerack knows it, and simply does not care. Buy beware..this is a ripoff.

Albert of Berrien Spring MI (05/05/08)
I purchased a new Subaru Forrester in December of 07. I do alot of driving both highway and city. My Forrester came with Yokohama Geolander G900. The car has 8,000 miles aon it and in the last month I have had to replace two of the tires.

The first tire had belt seperation which had to be replaced. The second tire had a nail puncture caused a belt seperation and had to be replaced. The general consensus in talking with tire retailers is that these tires are simply lousy tires that are overpriced. I would urge anyone looking to purchase tires to stay away from these. I know that the first chance I get I will replace all four tires.

Robert of New Brunswick NJ (04/15/08)
I purchase one pair of Yokohama Avid Touring and one pair of Yokohama Avid T4 for my 1996 Toyota Tacoma. They have been on the truck for three yeares and less then 25,000 miles. They all have more then adequate tread left, but the tire rot on the Avid Touring pair has forced me to replace them. I have never seen such tire rot on a three year old tire! They Avid T4's have very little tire rot. To Yokohama's credit-I have had a set of Yokohama H4S on my Opel GT for the past 3 years. There is no sign of tire rot on them. Yokohama USE to be my favorite tire company, but after reading other people's complaints here I will NOT purchase them again.

Judith of Waterloo IA (03/26/08)
I got out of my 7-month-old Suzuki Aerio today and noticed that both the left front and left rear tires had bulges. Obviously the belts had broken on these tires. I called Suzuki Corporate who told me it was not their issue. I called the dealship who told me they would look at it and see what (they) could do. I called Yokohama who gave me a case number and referred me to their closest dealer -- 75 unsafe freeway miles away. I picked the dealership.

The dealer said there were no abnormal wear problems, the tires were rotated balanced, etc., etc., etc. However, these tires have less than 9000 miles on them and the tires are coming apart. This was obviously a defective tire issue. These tires are supposed to be the high performance 195 55/15's that come on the sport Aerio.

What frustrates me is that I am a Technical Quality Manager and have worked in the automotive world for almost 15 years. I would NEVER allow a customer to be in a vehicle that was not safe for ANY reason. I have shut down production for less than this.

I can't understand why Yokohama is not doing something about this issue IMMEDIATELY before someone gets killed. But then I remember how many folks were killed by the exploding gas tanks on the Ford Pintos before anyone did anything and I shudder about what has happened to us as a society when our profit is more important than the lives of our customers.

I will end up going to a different tire dealer and getting four new tires on the Suzuki that are not Yokohama tires becuase I drive my prescious 3-year-old daughter around in this car. It will cost me at least another $400. Another day off of work, and much frustration. But all of that is small compared to the life of my daughter.

Wilmer of Parkton MD (12/09/07)
I have a problem with the Yokohama tire company. First I had what I thought was a puncture in the sidewall of my Yokohama Geolander ATS and had to purshase a new one. This was three months ago. I actually purchased two since they had about 35,000 miles on them. I just had one of the new tires do the same thing in the same spot. The sidewall blows out. I know for a fact I did not run over anything in order for this to happen. Is there a problem going on with this tire? I would appreciate any feed back as to any problems with this tire.

There was no physical damage except for me having to wait for three hours in the freezing cold for a tow truck to arrive.

Jim of Allen TX (08/15/07)
Coming back from a trip driving 65 MPH, the tire blue out and all the tread seperated from the tire. The tread slapped the side of my car causing some damage as it came completely off. Luckily I retained control of the car and brought it to a stop. I felt my wife and I had our life in jepordy due to this. There was very little shoulder on the highway and it was very dangerous to put the spare on the car. I will never buy Yokohama joak for a tire and am immediately buying a different brand for my spouse's car. Take note folks, these tires could kill you.

Bought another tire (not a Yokohama) and suffered quite a lot of stress from the ordeal on the highway. I hope Yokohama tires do not kill anyone.

Michael of Scranton PA (07/10/07)
I purchased a set of YokohamaES100 V rated 195/55r15 on APRIL 11, 2005. I have LESS THAN 25,000 miles on the tires and they are so worn that they will not meet PA inspection requirements.

only consequence is early reoplacement of tires. Yokohama has no interest in responding to consumer problems. I just want to add my name to the list of people advising people to avoid Yokohama tires.

Alfred of Charlton1 NY (06/01/07)
I have a pair of Yokohama Guardex 600 tires. Both have pleanty of tread left and both have been driven gently. They also both have belt separation.

Cindy of Palmetto FL (11/27/06)
The right rear Yokohama tire delaminated on the Interstate while traveling at 75 mph. There was a complete loss of control and the truck skidded and swerved across all lanes of traffic and back finally skidding sideways into the center median. When the tires caught in the sand the sideways skid came to an abrupt stop and the momentum rolled the truck over. The roof crushed in and the vehicle was destroyed. After all that, the delaminated tire was perfectly inflated and remained inflated for weeks afterward.

Even though 86% of rollovers are fatal, after a long pause, my son and his date crawled out of the truck in formal wear to a round of applause from the wonderful people who stopped to help. (They were on their way to the prom.)

The trooper who responded refused to allow us in traffic to retrieve the small shreds of tread strewn across the length of highway where the skid played out. He also said it looked like a tire defect, but warned of the nasty tactics of tire companies in this type of situation and told us we were basically screwed.

Yokohama proved him right. After many suspicious tactics they later refused the claim, citing many silly excuses including that the delaminated tread was not returned with the tire, inflation issues and a puncture.

Yokohama was cagey and gave me the runaround when we tried to contact them regarding the accident. It took 3 weeks and letters to every member of their Board of Directors before they would even speak to me. When Ann S (Yokohama’s product liability person) finally took a call, she was full of, “we take these issues seriously and will honor our warranty� blather. Then she demanded the tire be sent to California for an independent evaluation.

The tires only had about 12,000 miles on them and had practically no wear. There was no checking, rot or cracks. There seemed to be no apparent reason for this Spontaneous Tire Combustion.

Before giving up my tire, I sent it to a forensic engineering firm that had tire experts with impressive experience. I wanted their opinion of what could have caused the problem. They found things that could be damaging to Yokohama. When they were done, my tire went to California where Yokohama did an allegedly objective evaluation.

Yokohama's reasons for claim denial report were so bizarre that I couldn't believe they were describing my tire. It totally contradicted my experts findings. Yokohama never actually gave a reason why their tire failed. They just heaped ALL the blame on us. It's a common tire company trick. They used the standatd tire maker lies which you can read about at www.safetyforum.com/tires/article.html.

After Yoko's creative writing exercise, they gave me 30 days to claim my tire if I wanted it. Of course I wanted it! I had to see this puncture that my engineers somehow missed! Yokohama went back to hide and seek again. They ignored phone calls, back-dated a letter, lost phone logs and everything they could do to chew up those 30 days. When they finally had no other choice but to give up the tire, THEY JUST RETURNED THE RIM!

They gave me more runaround when I tried to get the actual tire and in frustration I put up a protest website: www.yokohama-tires-suck.com. Even after that it letters to 13 executives before Ms. S called to say my tire was lost.

Losing my tire meant no tire defect could ever be proven and legally it's called Spoliation of Evidence. Yokahama is obligated to pay the claim.

Four months later they have refused to pay a small claim for an 11-year-old truck and a few expenses. Instead they hired lawyers and pulled even more dirty tricks.

Apparently Yokohama has no regard for the people who buy their products and will do any thing to keep from doing what is right.

My son had a back injury that appeared minor when it happened but he is not healing as expected. The final determination of the permanancy of his injury may not be known for 5-7 years from now. The other passenger was perfectly fine.

Laristza of Riverside CT (06/07/06)
I bought a Mitsubisi Montero in June/2001. When my car reached 25,000 miles the rear right tire started to show the wires and the thread started to split, and a bubble was formed on the outside of the tire that is how we discover the wires and thread problem. I called Yokohama and they refferred me to Town Fair in Norwalk, CT. They inspected the tire and replace the tire not before I had to paid half of the price of the new tire because they said I used half of its life.

My car never had a flat tire, the tires were never over or under inflated, I lived Greenwich, CT which is the east coast. We have winter with a lot of snow so my car tires were always checked for the right air pressure.

On July 31/2005 we were coming back picking up my parents from the airport. We were traveling on I95 North at 55 miles per hour which the speed limit. That is when the accident ocurred because the rear right tire (the same tire that was replace it only had 17,000 miles) blow out.

We lost control of the car, we were spinning then the car turned into the right side and then rolled over 3 times ending up at the right shoulder facing the wrong direction.

We were 5 people in the car. We were lucky that the injuries were not death threatening but now we have permanent injuries that unfortunately X-rays won't show the pain that we are going through.

My insurance paid for all the medical care we needed but they said we have got into a point were no treatment will help as a result I cant continue with physical therapy. My mother and sister also are suffering from back, neck, hips, neck problems. In addition, my sister sustained a lot of injuries on her left arm due to cuts when the driver window broke becuase the car was rolling over. Her arm needs plastic surgery and we are fighting with my insurance.

On the other hand we were lucky that no other cars were involved in the accident, even though it was traffic on I95 that Sunday night.

I submitted a complain against Yokohama, they required all the documentation related with the accident and all the medical bills we incurred up to that time. They also asked me to send the tire for them to inspect it. I sent them the paper work were it shows that that tire was replace when the car had 25,000 miles and that at the time of the accident my car had 42,000. After a few weeks they sent me a report where Yokohama stated that the tire was not defective, that the tire was running over or under inflated, that there were some punctures that were never fixed even though I naver had a flat tire.

Tom Eifler of Fair Oaks CA (11/27/05)
One tire developed a bubble on the inside wall after 17,000 miles which was discovered only because a nail was removed from the tread. This could have resulted in a problem had a blow out happened on the freeway. The tires were never over or under inflated.

Sears gave a credit only because of their own protection plan and is no longer going to carry tires by the manufacturer.

Marcellous of Bay City, TX (09/25/05)
We purchased a tire (P195/70R14) tire last year because we had a bulge on it. Now when my wife and I was traveling towards Austin Texas we heard a very loud bang and we were doing the speed limit of 70 miles a hour. We had to try and get out of the line of traffic and to the shoulder of the road. When we finally got off the road and got out of my vehicle I looked at the right passenger side tire and noticed that it had separated from the tire.

I changed the tire and placed the spare on the vehicle. I got home later on that day and placed the tire in my garage. Well I had to go to school in Baytown Texas and on my way back from school that Friday the vehicle started to shake so I stopped at a Sears and made an appointment to get all four tires replaced that Saturday morning.

When the tire tech replaced the front left tire he called me into the shop to show me that the tire had busted inside and the belts had separated so I brought the tire back home and placed it with the other tire.

My wife called Yakohama and complained about the tire and their response was to send the tire by Fedex and they would have someone look at it and get back with me. I have checked the internet and read other stories about the customer service and the response for the same situation I am in.

I as well as my wife could have been killed when the tire went out at the speed we were traveling. I haven't heard from this company yet and I have called the and no one there seems to know how to make a a right call on my situation. I repalced all those Yokohama tires with another brand.

The new tires I had to buy cost me $400 + dollars. My wife was terrified because we could have be killed on that highway.

Amy of Bethlehem PA (03/30/04)
My new 2002 Toyota MR2 Spyder came equipped with 4 Yokohama tires. I was pleased at the outset because I have always heard great things about Yokohama. Within one year, a huge bulge appeared on the back passenger tire. I called around to find a certified Yokohama dealer. I waited weeks to have my special type of tire ordered (205/55/R15/85V) and when I went to have it replaced I was told that it would be covered under the one year, 36,000 mile warranty. This was after the certified dealer reviewed my damage.

I agreed to have the tire replaced. When I went to pick up my keys, the certified dealer told me that I owed $134. I told him I thought it was under warranty. He told me that I had to pay him first and he would submit the tire and a claim to Yokohama. If Yokohama decided to honor the warranty, they would cut the certified dealer a check and he would refund my money.

As this seemed like a very strange arrangement, I required that he provide me a copy of the Yokohama claim form. For the next several months, I proceeded to call Yokohama to follow-up on the status. The first 30 or so phone calls placed were never returned or I was not connected to anyone that could help me. After I finally reached the person I was told would be my contact he could not find the claim number in the system. He told me that he was not the person to speak to and referred me to someone else.

The new cusomter service rep told me that the claim number was not in the system because it could take 3 months for Yokohama to actually receive the tire from the dealer and then they have to test it in their engineering department. The woman went on to tell me that she doesn't believe it would be covered under warranty anyway because bulges are road hazards and they doubted that my tires were properly inflated, rotated, aligned etc.

I told her that I don't deny that I drive the vehicle on the road and I expect that tires would be able to withstand normal (non-winter!) road conditions for more than 17,000 miles.

7 months later, I still have no status on the tire warranty, from my contacts at Yokohama or their authorized dealer.

Last week, I was turning a corner in a residential neighborhood, a car was driving on my side of the street. To avoid a collision, I drove up over the curb corner (not insanely uncommon). I heard a very loud rush of air and realized that my tire had blown. The same exact tire that was replaced 7 months and 6,000 miles previous. When I changed the tire, I saw that the damage was a crack across the wall of the tire, not a hole or a puncture, but a split. This, of course, is unrepairable and I will be replacing the tires again.

This time, I will be replacing both back tires with Toyo tires. In a few months, I will have the Yokohamas removed from the front as well as tread is very badly worn already (total mileage: 23,000).

As my vehicle is rear wheel drive and my tires were supposedly speed rated for V, I am going to the expense to remove this product from my vehicle NOW to prevent a possibly serious accident in the future.

Lori of Helotes TX (10/06/03)
I have a 2002 Subara Forester that was purchased from Gillman Subaru (Houston and Austin) brand new, with installed Yokohama Tires (P215/60R 16 94H Geolander Radial Tubeless All-Season Tires. I have 36,000 on my vehicle, consisting of all city driving (freeways, streets, etc). My car has independent four wheel suspension/four wheel drive, but I do not drive on ANY gravel, grass, or dirt roads or over any debris.

All FOUR of my tires are in dangerous condition and need to be replaced. These are $110 tires ($110 PER TIRE) and should not be unusable after only 36,000 of normal, slow, safe, city driving! When I attempted to utilize the warranty, I was given the run around.

I have only used between 25-30% of the usable tread. I was willing to replace the tires and pay 25-30% of each tire to cover the cost of the tread I used, but I have had no luck working with the manufacturer or dealer. I have performed all maintenance on my vehicle including proper alignment/balancing, proper tire inflation, etc. Some of the tires have uneven wear, two have wall cracking, and one is essentially shredding itself.

This is absurd. Why spend $400-$500 on a set of high performance tires MADE for four-wheel-drive vehicles if they can't last 36,000 miles? These tires are either defective and/or inferior, and the manufacturer is attempting to avoid their liability and legal accountability under the law and under the warranty. I have never had similar problems with ANY tires I have previously owned/driven on.

I am driving on four dangerous tires. Does Yokohama want to replace these defective/inferior tires now, or after they result in an accident/injury?

Justin of Brick NJ (08/25/03)
I was on my way to work via the Garden State Parkway. I was driving below the speed limit, which is 65mph, when I suddenly heard a loud bang. Instantly my fender was flopping in the wind and my rear view mirror was no longer attached to my car. I promptly slowed down and then pulled into the shoulder. Once I was in the shoulder I got out of my car to assess what had happened. My Yokohama tire was still inflated and hissing out air but the tread had come completely off.

The New Jersey State Police arrived within 5 min of the incident. The police officer reviewed the facts and stated, “The tire must have been defective for the entire tread to have come off.”

I explained to the officer that my car had four new Yokohama tires on it when the car was purchased from Freehold Toyota and that three of them had formed bubbles in the actual tread itself forcing me to replace the tires. I hadn’t had the time nor the money to replace my spare being that I had three defective tires within two months and now the fourth tire was defective, all of which were the same Yokohama make and model.

As a result of this I had to miss a day of work so that my car could be towed to a shop and have a professional mechanic assess and fix the tire so that I could continue to drive my car to work. Before any work was done I took pictures with my digital camera to have a visual record of how much damage this tire had caused. I then proceeded to get two separate estimates, which were both in excess of $2000. I called several certified Yokohama dealers to see if there had been a recall on these tires. I’m sure you would be pleased to hear that everyone I spoke with said, “Yokohama has no recalls because they are one of the best tires made.”

Two of the dealers that made this statement were in shock when I brought the actual tire to them to show them what had happened to the tread. These same dealers then proceeded to state, “That is NOT supposed to happen.” And “Wow that is scary.”

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