Hey Guys, if you could give me a hand with this, it would be greatly appreciated. I have a 2006 Ford f-150, Crew cab XLT, 5.4 with the 3.55 Limited slip. Everything is stock on this, no lift nothing special. I do enjoy a good mud run and I am a avid ice fisherman, and I would like to know what the max size Firestone Destination MT's would be appropriate for my truck. Currently I am running Goodyear Wrangler P265/70R17 (HWY tires).

 

The max I believe that you could get on the truck would be 285/70/17's without having a leveling kit or lift of some sort. That puts the tire right under 33"

 

33" tires will fit just fine. A wider tire might rub the inner fender liner a tiny bit on full wheel lock. Your stock tires are a 32" tall

So try to keep with a 11-12" wide and youll be fine IMO

Suggest you do a 1.5" leveling kit though.

That tire only has a biggest size available of 33x12.5. Great tire though offroad. I had alot of fun with the pair I had

 

i have stock rims, and no lift/level kit. 285/70/17 will fit no problem. no rubbing at all

 

I wouldn't run any kind of Firestone tire even on my lawnmower. I know of two people that have had major blow out problems with Firestone tires and one of them was almost killed. In both cases, it was a defect in the tire that caused the blowouts. Remember all the Explorer tire problems? Those were also Firestone. I had some Firestone 500's on my 74 Grand Torino Elite that I had problems with in the mid 70's. The 500's were recalled and Firestone installed some 721's in their place. Those tires were junk as well. I finally bought some Michelins for that car and never had another tire problem. Just my opinion based on personal experience.

 

I was a little skeptical about buying mine but I went through with it and have put a little over 12k on them and haven't had a problem. I think all the problems they had in the past are resolved by now.

 

google the whole Firestone thing. it was a perfect storm. Idiots driving SUV's with air pressures in the 20 PSI range + 100F heat + tires built by scab workers during a Work strike. A disaster waiting to happen to any tire or brand. The high temps + low air pressures alone were causing issues. The scab workers just compounded and sped up a already bad problem.

Then lets not forget that the Exploder is/was the most dangerous SUV built from the day they were introduced until the latest revision was rolled out. But that is an arguement for another thread.


I've ran Firestone tires for many years without any issues. So have millions of others. I'm running their sister brand (Bridgestone) on my Mustang now without any qualms. For anybody scared about the issues they had in 2000-2001, I suggest you check out their more recent history and reviews. The company has made a complete turn-around.

 

Going through this now myself. If you read the reviews, almost all tires have some reviews saying "...this is the best..." or "...this is the worst..." tire they've ever had.

Firestone Destination AT's had fewer "haters" than most, didn't check reviews on MTs. (just search the tire name and reviews via epinion and tirerack and others will pop up). (or search "tire name problems" and you'll find plenty)

Goodyear Wrangler AT/S seems to bring out a lot of haters too...too bad, they are on sale here.

My tire lawyer buddy says he likes Michelin. He does not like Cooper--way too many lawsuits. Mostly he hates used tires and old tires. Something about dead bodies on the road....

FWIW, ymmv, good luck, check the age, keep them inflated, check them regularly, consider replacement if you get a flat, vs. the repair that may still allow contamination into the steel belts on top of the possibly already compromised integrity of the tire caused by running flat, if it did.

I could go on all day, but I think I shouldn't....again, good luck.

 

I am running the Firestone Destination AT and I've had them for about 10k miles now. I haven't hand any issues with them so far and they've been great at everything I've put them through! If you read the reviews, the whole Firestone blowout debacle is a thing of the past. I don't have any input on the MT's though.

 

This is like saying that all Fords are firetraps because Pintos blew up when rear ended. (And yes, Crown Vic fuel tanks in cop cars will blow open when rear ended at 70 mph but I don't consider that a faulty design.) I had a 1976 Corvette with Firestone 500's that were recalled and replaced in 1979, but dang, that 31 years ago. Jeez, don't you realize that products change over time? I would buy Firestones or Bridgestones without reservation at this point in time. I would probably NOT buy no-name Chinese tires like "Saveros" or whatever the cheap used car dealers put on.

How similar do you think a current Destination MT is to your 1974 Firestone 500's?

George

 

My friend who is the most recent victim of Firestone quality just totaled his truck, trailer, and a low mileage Mustang and still uses a cane to get around. The tires were properly inflated, etc. This accident happened last summer. I doubt you'll ever get me to purchase a Firestone tire again. Same goes for the Chinese imports. As I said earlier, it's my opinion based on my experience and that of some people close to me.

 

Greg, I'm certainly sorry to hear about your friend and would be curious about the particulars of his accident. What model Firestone tires, how old, any prior damage, were they overloaded, underinflated, was it a pure tire failure due to defect or a road hazard issue, etc? If Firestones were failing in any significant numbers, it seems to me that there would be a lot of buzz on the Internet about it, as well as front page reports in newspapers, forced recalls, etc. The world is much smaller now in terms of the spread of news of auto and parts defects compared to 2000, and WAY smaller compared to the 1970's.

Again, I had a set of bad 500's waaay back in 1979, and am well aware of the Explorer fiasco (where I believe the situation was a "perfect storm" of factors) but have not recently been aware of any pattern of Firestone failures. I'm a big fan of Michelin and BFG (which is owned by Michelin) and on our 4 vehicles, 2 have Michelins, 2 have BFG's, and I'm quite happy with them. I will look a little deeper into recent Firestone problems before I recommend them to anyone.

Good luck to your friend for a full recovery,
George

 

Yogeorge, I'm not sure of the particular model of Firestone tire, but it was not underinflated, overloaded, nor very old. It was a load range E tire and was on the left front with a relatively empty truck with a 7000 lb. enclosed car hauler loaded with a Mustang. From what I gathered he was traveling on the Interstate highway when the tire blew out, causing the truck to veer into the median and roll over. I do know that he, like I, is **** about tire pressure and condition. Ever since the 500 debacle in the 70's, I have been a Michelin, BFG, and Pirelli customer. I have also had good experience with most General tires that I have owned. But I'll likely never own a Firestone again.

 

I'm on my second set of Destinations. I have LEs on my 96 Chevy 1500 and ATs on my 05 F150 4X4. My wife is running a set of FR710s on her Windstar and my son is running Firehawks on his Taurus. No problems with quality at all. The performance has been excellent also. I would recommend Firestone/Bridgestones w/o reservation.