Tire blowout or tread separation on the 2012 Chevrolet Silverado
2 fires 2 of the 4 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 3 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When tire blowout or tread separation gets reported
There are 4 reports of tire blowout or tread separation on the 2012 Chevrolet Silverado, 3 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 38,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 19,423 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 2 a fire is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $200–$1,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 175,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 carries the most reports, with 21; the 2012 has 4. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
This involves an oem tire on a 2012 chevrolet pick up truck, silverado 1500. I'm a retired automotive engineer. Tire is made by general tire, size p245/75r/17, DOT p583 bn1. I am original owner and only driver. This tire has never run over anything but roadway surface. I was traveling on the freeway when the sidewall plies broke internally causing the tire to de-bead. I pulled over to inspect. Tire was smoking from the inside. It was fully ready to catch fire. Copious amounts of smoke. I poured my ice tea down the inside part of rim and backed truck up to slosh ice tea around inside of smoking tire. There are no cuts, stone bruises, or other outside influences. This tire broke its sidewall. You can both see and feel it. Tread and crown at same area are fine. Tire has 6/32" tread remaining. When tire was replaced, there were handfuls of shredded rubber found inside the tire by tire shop. I kept the tire if any rep wants to inspect it. This is very dangerous. This tire failure could have caused a fatality.. *tr
This involves an oem tire on a 2012 chevrolet pick up truck, silverado 1500. I'm a retired automotive engineer. Tire is made by general tire, size p245/75r/17, DOT p583 bn1. I am original owner and only driver. This tire has never run over anything but roadway surface. I was traveling on the freeway when the sidewall plies broke internally causing the tire to de-bead. I pulled over to inspect. Tire was smoking from the inside. It was fully ready to catch fire. Copious amounts of smoke. I poured my ice tea down the inside part of rim and backed truck up to slosh ice tea around inside of smoking tire. There are no cuts, stone bruises, or other outside influences. This tire broke its sidewall. You can both see and feel it. Tread and crown at same area are fine. Tire has 6/32" tread remaining. When tire was replaced, there were handfuls of shredded rubber found inside the tire by tire shop. I kept the tire if any rep wants to inspect it. This is very dangerous. This tire failure could have caused a fatality.. *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 chevrolet silverado equipped with federal couragia a/t mud train tires, size: st 516-333/12.50 r20lp (na). While driving at approximately 10 MPH, the band of the tire separated causing the vehicle to vibrate uncontrollably as the tire blew out. The vehicle was not taken to a dealer for diagnostic testing. The contact stated that one tire was replaced. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The VIN was unknown. The approximate failure mileage of the vehicle was 60,000 and the tire failure mileage was 3,000.
Also reported on the 2012 Chevrolet Silverado
Other body or interior problem
Other powertrain problem
Other brake problem
Other electrical problem
Other suspension problem
Other wheel or tire problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 4 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does tire blowout or tread separation happen on the 2012 Chevrolet Silverado?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 20,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is tire blowout or tread separation on the 2012 Chevrolet Silverado?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed