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.

Alfred of Charlton1, NY June 1, 2007

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 November 27, 2006

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 June 7, 2006

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.

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