I have an appointment tomorrow but I'm not sure the dealer can help me with this.... Should i just go to mr. Tire to see if this is manufacturer defect, I bet they can help me set up claim to Dunlop tires...

Anyone have the same situation?

TIa

 

That is typical for OEM Dunlop tires. I had three do that long before they wore out. Take it to the dealer. If they will not process the warranty they should be able to tell you who will replace it.

 

Tires are warranted by the tire manufacturer and not Honda. They will send you to the tire dealer.

The tire dealer could tell you it's the result of road hazards and they're not warranted.

Good luck.

 

I can share some experience from my years in the tire business with you that may help.

I respectfully disagree with the statement that its typical of Dunlop tires. After personally installing tires and managing shops that have literally installed tens of thousands of sets of tires over the last 25 years I cant say I have seen Dunlop have any pattern of failure realted to sidewall bubbles.

As far as warranty goes, i can give you advice on what to say to the manufacturer for help. First Id like to explain what causes it so you can talk with customer service and be ready with the right information.

A bubble on the side of a tire is almost always found to be caused by an impact while driving. Im not saying you slammed a curb but even a walnut sized sharp rock that the edge of the tire rolls over at low speed could do it and you wouldn't even know it until you spot the bubble. Then you instantly think its the tires fault and head right for the service counter to blame the tire and the person at the counter. the customer now is extremely hard to reason with because they dont even know they drove over something. Even after showing damage some never believe what you tell them. Potholes are another culprit here.

Once the tire is removed you can easily see the impact break inside the tire. There is no way it just appeared there after 2300 miles unless there was an impact. Customer service at Goodyear/Dunlop is trained very well for this and know this. They will be ready for whatever you say since they have heard it all before.

On extremely rare occasions a bubble is caused by air migration through the inner butyl lining. The tiny pin holes in the inner butyl lining are near impossible to find but the tire will bubble and no break is found inside the tire directly behind the bubble. These bubbles don't usually look the same as an impact break bubble. They are typically long and flatter since the air is travelling from the pinhole and sideways through the sidewall untill it cant go any further. These bubles are usually fairly flat and I have seen them 4-6" or longer.

So, why does it bubble? Well, tubes were removed from the inside of tires many years ago. The tubes purpose was to hold the air. The tubes would move around a little and make the tires get hot. Tire talc, which is much like baby powder, was put into the tire before the tube to help reduce friction but they still got too hot. Overall, they were problematic.

Then the tubeless tires hit the market. But what holds the air if there is no tube? Its the inner butyl line of the tire and the tire bead that fits tightly on the rim that holds in the air. If the inner butyl lining is not intact then air leaks through the split and the higher pressure in the tire vs the air pressure outisde the tire causes that spot to push outward and form a bubble. Not a defect its just the laws of physics at work.

So, where does that leave you now? Have the tire dismounted and ask to see the inside of the tire. Ask for the tech to trace the bubble with tire chaulk before removing the tire. After the tire is removed push your finger into the center of where the bubble was and look inside the tire at that spot. You will most likely see a split open up and find that the tire is very soft at that spot since its damaged. Find several other random spots on the sidewall and try and push in the tire. It wont do the same thing and will be much firmer.

So, if its splits it isnt air migration and the tire is not "adjustable" under the "normal" tire warranty. So what does "adjustable" mean? A tire adjustment is a process ANY Goodyear dealer can do at their location. If they know the rules, and they should, they classify why the warranty should be applied, document it properly, and either replace the tire only for free or the customer pays a percentage based on the miles they drove it vs its expected life. The customer should pay for the time they used it and it was troule free. Now, Goodyear/Dunlop dealers are never required to install it, replace any valve component or balance it for free when adjusting a tire. It is their choice to charge or not. I personally never let any of my stores charge since they were our customers and I wanted them to know we helped them on the house.

So heres why some dealers dont adjust tires, avoid telling the customers about adjustments and are afraid to do it. It all comes down to training. If the person adjusting it hasnt been properly trained and does it wrong then the factory doesnt give them credit and they lose the money. The factory actually requires sending the tire back and they check each one before they give credit to the dealer. The dealer has to arrange for shipping and have a freight carrier pick up the properly labeled and marked tires to get credit. So, they dont bother doing this and are afraid they will screw it up and lose the money.

We discovered a way to make sure we always got credit. The form we filled out had a spot where you check off that you want the tire shipped back at your own expense if its not adjustable. Why would you want to pay to have a useless tire sent back if you already paid for the tire the customer got under warranty that wasnt under warranty? Because the factory has so many tires they check and almost nobody wants them back. So imagine a tire processing center with huge piles of tires to check. The people checking them dont separate the tires and they can never find your tire when you call to ask why it was denied but not sent back. They then just give you credit because they lost it. You will never convince a dealer to do this to ensure they will get credit but it does work.

So, after this long winded post you are wondering where its going. Well, Goodyear wants its customers to be happy. If this is on a new Fit and under a year they can make an exception when you call in and replace it for free to the dealer. They can give them an authorization code to ensure they get credit 100% guaranteed if the dealer knows and asks for this. You can also call them yourself and get the ball rolling on this.

Now for your ace in the hole. Goodyear/Dunlop dealers have field reps that visit each tire dealer. They have the power to hand out warranies on anything they feel they should. They have always helped me warranty anything that was questionale by just asking them for help. They also want any person driving on one of their tires to feel good about the company.

So, a quick summary: Inspect the tire and see what happened, ask the dealer to call in for an exception if its impact damage, call yourself if they won't or claim customer service denied it, ask for contact info for the local rep and get them involved. Or just pay the cost if its not a defect and save all the trouble and time.

Dont forget to tell us what happened!

Good luck!

 

You are right that the business you go to is a Honda dealer but if they sell replacement tires they are also a Goodyear/Dunlop dealer and obligated to offer the same warranty that any other Goodyear/Dunlop dealer does. Typically they dont share that with you or claim they cant do it.

 

Honda will send you to the tire dealer.

This has been my experience, and the warranty states:

That said, I don't know if they sold replacement Goodyears. Honda claimed the tires were out of round. Goodyear claimed the wheels weren't true. I went back and forth a couple times. Eventually the local goodyear dealer replaced two tires. I didn't get satisfaction (they still vibrated) until I replaced them with Michelins.

 

Many manufacturers have those statements included with their vehicles. If they sell replacements for the tires then they are Goodyear dealers too and do warranties through their tire supplier. They get tires from a warehouse and not Honda and can work with that warehouse on warranty claims. So, the tire manufacturer is warrantying the tires but the Honda dealer is processing the claim. The document is still true but is clearly written to infer its not done at the Honda dealer.

The included disclaimer should state: "Your Honda dealer may be a tire dealer for your OEM tires and will be happy to assist you in processing a claim through the tire manufacturer." Then they should inform their dealers not to blow off customers and help them out.

I do agree that they will most likely send you away and not help.

I have had many customers over they years that came to the counter and said "the dealer said that you have to replace my tires under warranty". Thats pretty funny. It would be like me blaming a bad OEM installed part, caused by something the customer did, on the dealer and telling the customer they can go to Honda to get it fixed for free. The customers natrally is happy to hear its free and runs right over expecting it. Then the guy on the other end has a cusomer who finds it hard to listen to the real facts.

They can do everything I spoke of. It comes down to if they are willing to.

 

When you hit a bad enough pothole, the Duns get a knot in the tire. It happened to one of my tires and I was shocked it didn't just blow out. It was a really nasty pothole. The buldge of course shows up in the sidewall- end of tire. Not much you can do really. I lost another one to a pothole last winter but that one flat out ripped the inner side wall and it went flat. Night time is tough and they can come up on you fast, until it's too late. What I do though is spring for a second tire for a spare- I get them from tire rack. So I always have another one ready to go. Nobody just has these Duns on a rack ready to install. I bring in the new rubber with me, in/out in a flash. Lower profile tires are more pissy. I drive accordingly and try to avoid what I can.

 

Thanks for the replies!!

In the meantime, the dealer gave me a replacement..

There were no damage with the side if the rim.. The tech told the advisor that maybe we can change it as 'dealer goodwill'.. But the advisor was bitchy and was trying to just dump me to the nearest dunlop tire shop.. (dunno if we even have one in the area)... They'll call back monday to confirm the replacement... Luckily they never get my credit card info.. Haha... I can use this tire as much before they can come up with response from dunlop....

On a side note though, they never take off the tire.. It was all visual inspection from the sidewall...

 

If you don't get anywhere with the dealer, definitely take it to a tire shop... the same thing happened to me on the crappy Bridgestones at about the same mileage ---> https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...-3k-miles.html


I know on the OEM Bridgestones this is quite common, not too many have had this problem with the OEM Dunlops.

 

Take a look at Dunlop tires on TireRack(dot)kom....

...If you look at customer surveys, Dunlops are ranked in the bottom 25% consistently by owners and Tire Rack testing.
Ditch'em and buy a good tire.

 

yah, i can also state from experience running two full sets of the factory oem dunlops on my Fits that it is NOT a common problem.


all 8 tires wore perfecty normal and are reliable tires. not the best tires, but works fine for most people.

 

After having 3 out of 4 fail on 1 Honda Fit due to side wall bubbles during summer and fall weather, I can only assume that we have a lot off season hidden pot holes here. It is interesting that the pot holes avoid our Yokohama Avid Ascends that we eventually replaced them with. Also the pot holes have been avoiding all of the other vehicles we own with other brand tires.

Maybe the potholes have signs out that saying "Hidden Pothole, Dunlop tires Only allowed here."

I can buy how hitting a decent pothole might cause an occasional tire failure but we had a 75% failure rate in one year. One left front, one left rear, and one right rear all with no marks on the wheels. We looked at the first two for inside tire damage and found none. On the last one we simply threw it out and replaced the pair.

Dunlop may make some good tires. I do not know because I do not buy them for our cars or our motorcycles. I can say that from our experience with the OEM Dunlop model used on the Honda Fit, our tires were not reliable. None of them blew out. They just sidewall bubbled.

 

Correct. It is pretty common knowledge on car forums that two brands in particular are "known" (not in a good way) for weak sidewalls: Dunlop and Continental. I've owned both and bubbled them both. Like I said before, check the tires' histories... owners seldom lie about crappy tires.

 

Wow... didn't know it was that bad for the Dunslops too..


I also had 3 bubble on me... the first one within 3000 miles, no potholes were hit, nor were any curbs. The next 2 appeared about 7k miles later, and that was enough for me and the crappy OEM Bridgestones. So glad I swapped over to the DWS's, not a single bubble, and these have hit some pretty hard potholes (unintentionally, ofcourse).

 

Good points. Not a tire expert here but do have 2x bubble experiences on the Fit under my belt (front tires both times - one Goodyear and one Kumho, both OEM sizes). Don't think it has much to do with the brand but more so on the car's tire dimensions which seem to be very susceptible to sidewall blisters. Just my take. Never experienced this with any of my previous cars, past and present.

 

honestly ive not had one bubble on any of my 20+ cars ive owned in my life time. two were used cars.
not to forget the many wheel sets ive bought over the years in addition to the factory tire sets.

 

Good for you Ken... I've filed them under "freaky unforgettable moments of car ownership" files along with my '80 RX7 blown front strut and my '89 Dodge front tire fix-a-flat blowout!

 

I got thinking some more on this Dunlop tire bubble issue. The Dunlop brand is owned by at least 3 different companies depending on what country you are in. The Dunlop brand is owned by and the tires are manufactured Goodyear in North America. In Japan Dunlop is owned by and tires are made by Sumitomo Rubber Industries. Since our US Fits were manufactured in Japan, I'll bet we are getting Sumitomo / Dunlop, not Goodyear / Dunlop tires. I do not have any of these tires around any more, I scrapped them several years ago but it would be interesting to see if any of the OEM Fit tires say "Made in Japan" on them. I'll bet they do. This might also explain why aftermarket Dunlops in NA do not have nearly as bad of a reputation.

 

Mine are long gone but this is an interesting question.

Sometimes the tires originate here even if the car is assembled in Japan (gets some north american content that way...)