Big O tire problem
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Big O tire problem
My parents own a 97 explorer and I just had a few questions regarding the tires. They had a blow out and I was surprised they got 4 new tires. The back tires, were ready to be replaced (one that blew was on rear) but the fronts still had much life left. Basically, Big O tire claimed the control trac 4wd on their 97 would not operate correctly if they left the front good year wrangler rt/s tires on. Mind you these tires had about 2-3+ yrs left. They said, since say the front were old and back were new the control trac would think a tire was slipping, turning the 4wd on/off on/off. This doesn’t sound right to me. Secondly, I take a look at the spare and the morons left the old spare which is severely dry rotted and has little tread while throwing out two good tires. They also inflated the tires to 40+psi when ford recommends 26psi for control limitations. Big o also claimed their Big O Big foot tires are produced by Goodyear, this is false; correct? The tires they put on are not only ugly as all hell but they ran $160 each (most expensive Big O brand tire that would fit). I just wanted to make sure all my facts were correct before I give Big O a call tomorrow. I think they took advantage of my parents, what do you think? total was nearly $700! for Big O brand tires, not a happy camper.
Thanks,
Joe
Thanks,
Joe
Last edited by rollinXplorer; Oct 5, 2005 at 01:50 AM.
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 3,956
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From: Abilene, Texas
Originally Posted by rollinXplorer
My parents own a 97 explorer and I just had a few questions regarding the tires. They had a blow out and I was surprised they got 4 new tires. The back tires, were ready to be replaced (one that blew was on rear) but the fronts still had much life left. Basically, Big O tire claimed the control trac 4wd on their 97 would not operate correctly if they left the front good year wrangler rt/s tires on. Mind you these tires had about 2-3+ yrs left. They said, since say the front were old and back were new the control trac would think a tire was slipping, turning the 4wd on/off on/off. This doesn’t sound right to me. Secondly, I take a look at the spare and the morons left the old spare which is severely dry rotted and has little tread while throwing out two good tires. They also inflated the tires to 40+psi when ford recommends 26psi for control limitations. Big o also claimed their Big O Big foot tires are produced by Goodyear, this is false; correct? The tires they put on are not only ugly as all hell but they ran $160 each (most expensive Big O brand tire that would fit). I just wanted to make sure all my facts were correct before I give Big O a call tomorrow. I think they took advantage of my parents, what do you think? total was nearly $700! for Big O brand tires, not a happy camper.
Thanks,
Joe
Thanks,
Joe
Scotty
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When I ran a tire shop we were directed that there had to be less then 5/32's tread difference between front and rear on all AWD vehicles becusae if there's more it is too much circumfrence difference which could cuase a differntial or tcase to burn out.. we actually had one burn out and the guy tried to blame us.. that's why the rule was in effect.
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From: UT
I've also heard the Goodyear makes Big-O tires. From a post I posted in another forum
. If you have access to the tires, put the manufacturer's DOT code into the above page and see who really made the tires.
As for buying 4 tires, I expect that's pretty standard. I once tried to run mismatched tires on my BII. The difference in tires was enough to cause the 4WD to bind, pop, and could be very difficult to get it out of 4WD. Proper matched set of tires and the problem was gone. Don't know if your parents have the V6-4WD drivetrain or the V8-AWD drivetrain, but I can say from experience that having mismatched tires (or even old/new tires of the same make/model) can cause problems on 4WD vehicles.
I just bought a set of Dunlop Mud Rovers for ~$120/tire. For a good tire (and I haven't heard anything bad about Big-O's tires), $160/tire might be a little high, but is likely within reason. You might be able to do some research and get a price adjust or something in the interest of satisfying the customer so they come back again. Can't say for sure.
Good luck.
I'm sure most of you are aware that off brand tires are really made by the big boys -- they just put a different name on them. Ever wondered how to tell who makes a given off-brand tire? Ever wondered how to tell where your name brand tires were made? Ever wondered how to tell when your tires were made? I did some research, and have figured out how to partially decode the DOT code so you can get this information. I didn't see this information posted here, so I thought I'd put it up in case anyone was interested.
1st locate the DOT code: It will usually be on only one side of the tire, down by the rim. If you don't see it on the outside as you have your tires mounted, it should be found on the inside. It will look like this:
DOT MC(XX XXXX) WKYR
as an example: I have a Firestone tire with this as its code: DOT 8XHL xxx 3900
Here's what it means:
MC -- These first two characters after DOT designate the manufacturer/plant. Take these two characters and enter them into the DOT ID search field of this NHTSA search page http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/manufacture/ For my example, it shows 8X as Bridgestone/Firestone in Graniteville, SC.
The X's are extra digits used by some manufacturers to identify individual tire lines and stuff. From what I can gather, these digits, when present, are only meaningful to the manufacturer.
The last four digits designate the week (WK) and year (YR) the tire was manufactured. I've seen some indication that older tires (pre-'99 or something) will sometimes only use 3 digits, where the first two indicate week, and the last one year. So a date code of 414 would be the 41st week of either 1994 or 1984. So, for my sample tire, it was made in the 39th week (late sept/early oct) of 2000.
Hopefully someone will find this information of interest. It can seem pretty trivial, but I enjoy finding trivial pieces of information like this.
1st locate the DOT code: It will usually be on only one side of the tire, down by the rim. If you don't see it on the outside as you have your tires mounted, it should be found on the inside. It will look like this:
DOT MC(XX XXXX) WKYR
as an example: I have a Firestone tire with this as its code: DOT 8XHL xxx 3900
Here's what it means:
MC -- These first two characters after DOT designate the manufacturer/plant. Take these two characters and enter them into the DOT ID search field of this NHTSA search page http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/manufacture/ For my example, it shows 8X as Bridgestone/Firestone in Graniteville, SC.
The X's are extra digits used by some manufacturers to identify individual tire lines and stuff. From what I can gather, these digits, when present, are only meaningful to the manufacturer.
The last four digits designate the week (WK) and year (YR) the tire was manufactured. I've seen some indication that older tires (pre-'99 or something) will sometimes only use 3 digits, where the first two indicate week, and the last one year. So a date code of 414 would be the 41st week of either 1994 or 1984. So, for my sample tire, it was made in the 39th week (late sept/early oct) of 2000.
Hopefully someone will find this information of interest. It can seem pretty trivial, but I enjoy finding trivial pieces of information like this.
As for buying 4 tires, I expect that's pretty standard. I once tried to run mismatched tires on my BII. The difference in tires was enough to cause the 4WD to bind, pop, and could be very difficult to get it out of 4WD. Proper matched set of tires and the problem was gone. Don't know if your parents have the V6-4WD drivetrain or the V8-AWD drivetrain, but I can say from experience that having mismatched tires (or even old/new tires of the same make/model) can cause problems on 4WD vehicles.
I just bought a set of Dunlop Mud Rovers for ~$120/tire. For a good tire (and I haven't heard anything bad about Big-O's tires), $160/tire might be a little high, but is likely within reason. You might be able to do some research and get a price adjust or something in the interest of satisfying the customer so they come back again. Can't say for sure.
Good luck.
Last edited by mrshorty; Oct 5, 2005 at 11:37 AM.
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Joined: May 2004
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From: Webster, NY
I also ditto the findings with 4WD vehicles and different tire sizes. It caused me a whole lot of issues a long while back on my Subaru '86 wagon (4WD not AWD).. I did not believe them when they told me it was the tires, but loh and behold... change the back tires to match the front and all was well again.
In any case, the $700 seems a little steep. This is more than I payed for the top of the line Bridgestones that are on my Mountaineer about 8 months ago. That came to somewhere around $650 and it was for what would be called "name brand" tires.
In any case, the $700 seems a little steep. This is more than I payed for the top of the line Bridgestones that are on my Mountaineer about 8 months ago. That came to somewhere around $650 and it was for what would be called "name brand" tires.
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With all big Os talk about replacing all my tires for the control tracs sake, guess what just so happens begins to malfunction….the control trac. The control trac keeps kicking on and off and is very difficult to steer due to the wheels being locked together. So I pulled fuse 27 which disabled the 4wd for now. Before I pulled the fuse the 4wd lights would blink 6 times ever 2 minutes. Which speed sensors should I check? where are the sensors? what do they look like? Is there anything besides the sensors I should look at? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Joe
Joe
Last edited by rollinXplorer; Oct 11, 2005 at 09:58 PM.
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