Jim De Arras

And they say I'm the ONLY audi S4 driver that they are aware of that has had a problem with his tires, and he doubts my information that others have had the same problem, and most seem to be at the 5000 mile point. He suggested I have anyone I am aware of with an RE040 problem to call them at thier 800 number

Bridgestone Technical Service Dept. 1-800-356-4644

He was polite, but dubious of my reports.

Sam

First it was ABS, now it's the tires... Jim, you are a nightmare for every customer service rep.

Drew

He denied there was any kind of problem, and indicated I was the only person who had complained of problems with bubbles in the sidewall. He suggested I need to take the tires to a Firestone shop for them to examine them. In general he was NOT helpful and IMHO defensive. I asked to make an official complaint and he told me to call 800-367-3872. I gues I will try this now.

BTW this has now happend to 2 of my tires, I am really starting to get concerned about the performance, reliability, and saftey of these tires.

Drew

Russ Burns

Its the only wayt to get better. I went a long way listening to my customers.

Russ Burns

Ben Broder

All Jim is trying to do is use the power of the Internet to organize people with a similar problem to work together to get the manufacturer to take responsibility for the problem. I'm sure that if you get a bubble in your tire, you'll thank him for his efforts.

Phil

I have experienced the same problem. I have a bubble on one of my tires as well on my S4.....I'll get back to you on this....I will call them now....I have 2k on the car....

jyoteen

He also told me to take it to a Firestone shop in Los Angeles. The man had a deep voice. He wasn't defensive, but maybe we can get the customer rep's name and tally up the bubble count.

Maybe we can get together a list of people and their mileage and contact numbers??

Dingleberry

I used to own another car (Volvo 850R) which had the same problem: stock tire/rim setup unsuitable for less-than-perfect roads. They recently settled a class action suit and offered $500 cash to all owners. The car had 17" rims with 205/45 rubber (Pirelli PZero Assimetrico), which couldn't handle any kind of road hazards, regardless of ambient temperature. I blew out 5 sidewalls in less than 25k miles; it's impossible to avoid all of the car-swallowing potholes in MA.

I haven't used the stock rim/tire combo on my S4 yet (it's Boston, after all) but will watch the sidewalls with great trepidation when I switch...

LCP

He was going to check with the Bridgestone dealer that I took it to in order to see what they're doing about it (nothing right now because I haven't made a decision as to replace the tires on all 4 wheels yet, but my dealer did orally agree that it was a warrantable defect).