Les Schwab Tires, Towmax and Geostar Tire Brands

For All You Western Heartlanders:
I wrote a letter the other day to Les Schwab tires about what I was told by one of their service centers, that they were discontinuing the Geostar brand in the ST285-80R16 LRG size, in favor of the Towmax brand. I was very surprised to get a personal phone call today from their corporate offices reassuring me that they are continuing stocking the Geostar brand in that size at their stores, which has worked very well for me. I had to replace a set recently, but only due to my error in setting my brake controller to high, repeatedly skidding the tires, and grinding many flat spots into them.
My satisfaction with the quality of their products, their high commitment to customer service, their support of community charities, and standing behind whatever they sell (not to mention the plethora of service centers throughout the north part of the West) will keep me a Les Schwab Tires Customer.

Bill, are the Geostars the next generation of the Freestar line? Of any tires discussed on these forums, the Freestars seem to be least mentioned as having problems. Mine are still in great shape.

JohnDar said:

Bill, are the Geostars the next generation of the Freestar line? Of any tires discussed on these forums, the Freestars seem to be least mentioned as having problems. Mine are still in great shape.

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John:
I did some internet website detective work, and could find no manufacturer's website for Freestar, but did find one for Geostar posted by a self-described large "distributor" of tires called "Tireco, Inc." (http://www.tireco.com ). Is this the distributor behind the Towmax's that has been denying all the claims we hear about on this forum? Their website has a self-generated e-mail response under the "Contact Us" tab, with no physical address, phone #, or direct e-mail address. Their listing of tire/wheel brands (http://www.tireco.com/brands) shows both Freestar and Geostar, but not Towmax. They also show Selden wheels, which what was originally on my Bighorn.

One of my original Freestars developed a sidewall bubble about 3 years after manufacture, the rest held up O.K. I replaced them because of the bubble on 1, another having the sidewall shredded in a drum/bearing failure, and the others due to age and wear, plus they did also have a bit of a negative reputation on this forum, but nothing like the amount of negative Towmax postings I have seen here.

I don't know if this means anything, but the professional for Les Schwab corporate purchasing who phoned me described the Geostar in the ST235-80R16 LRG as "pretty much bulletproof". That statement, plus their corporate comittment to satisfaction is in large letters on the back of all of their delivery semis: "If We Can't Guarantee It, We Won't Sell It".

It is pretty interesting to reading Les Schwab's entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Schwab