August 9, 2000

The Following Is General Motors' Statement Regarding Firestone Wilderness Tires Found On Some GM Vehicles. It Can Be Attributed To Brook Lindbert, Director of GM Tire And Wheel Systems.

The safety of our customers is an overriding priority for General Motors and we understand that many of them are concerned by recent news reports regarding Firestone Wilderness tires that were provided as original equipment on more than 500,000 GM vehicles including:

• Some 1999 and 2000 model year Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks
• Some 2000 model year Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, and GMC Yukon and Yukon XL sport utility vehicles
• Some 2001 model year Pontiac Aztek sport recreational vehicles *

There are no GM vehicles involved in today's recall announcement by Firestone. The recall involved only tire size P235/75R15. None of the GM vehicles listed above is equipped with that tire size. In addition, the Wilderness tires on GM vehicles are different than those found on other manufacturers' vehicles because they were engineered and tuned to meet GM's specific and unique performance requirements. The real-world performance of the Wilderness tires on GM vehicles has been excellent and we are aware of no incidents reported to us involving durability or tread separation.

Any GM customers with Firestone Wilderness tires on their vehicles can call Firestone at 1-800-465-1904 to schedule an appointment with a company-owned Firestone Tire and Service Center for a free inspection of their tires.

[ About FAS | Last Modified (10/31/00) ]