I bought Douglas tires from WalMart for a Subaru P185/70R13 and Ford minivan P215/70R14. On the Subaru, I rotated the tires at 3000 mi. The car pulled so
badly to the left that my arm got tired driving it. Walmart personnel said that bad alignment was responsible. Bad alignment? Five minutes before the rotation it drove fine. The Tires wore on the outside edges and each tire wore disproportionately. I removed the tires in about 7000 mi. Because one tire failed completely and the wear was so uneven on the other tires.
On the Ford, I had excessive wear on all the tires on the outside edge in about 6000 mi. WalMart replaced them to their credit for a nominal fee. Their Mantra was the same. It's the Alignment. I had done an alignment the year before but I had it realigned again. The new tires did exactly the same thing and the car pulled to the right.
Over two years I had four alignments with the same result of the car pulling to the right and I had replaced many of the component in the steering system with new parts to try and solve the problem. I wasn't until I took the Douglas tires off the car and put on sno tires for the winter that all my drivability problems disappeared. I know from my experience that Douglas tires are a flawed design. The tire profile has excessive roll over which leads to excessive edge wear and I run my tires at 35 psi, too. I have never in my 50 years of driving had an experience like this with a set of tires.
Goodyear has decided to voluntarily recall the P215/70R14 tires. What about the P185/70R13 tires?
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