Hi,

I keep seeing threads with people getting 10K out of the rears and 20K out of the fronts....

I only got 9K out of all 4... whats up with that? I doubt I drive it as hard as most of you out there...

Anyways the real question is, when should you replace them?

I checked the wear bars at 9K and the two rears were flush with the tread... The fronts were both visably above the wear bar... but it was less then a millameter... I could just barely feel the difference when I ran my finger over them...

So, should those fronts have made it a another 10k miles? is everone out there saying that the wear bars are compeletly gone when they replace there tires? or am I just getting crappy wear out of my tires?

I went ahead and replaced all four, cause I need to wear in the new ones before I hit sears point in two weeks... But, I can't help thinking I hsould have gotten another 8K out of those tires...


Thanks!

-- Robert

 

How are your tire pressures? What's your daily route like? Is it curvaceous?

 

I keep them all at around 33 PSI. I check the pressure every week... Early in the morning before driving...

My daily route is 1 mile straight down a normal city street, and 1 mile back. I've had the car since march... I would say 420 of those 9K are from my daily routine...

Once a week I go driving though the mountains... its about 100 miles circle... So that come out to about 3500 miles of mountain driving...

The other 5080 miles are Hiway miles...

Never been to the track...

-- Robert

 

I can't make any sense out of reported tread life for the stock tires.

I've seen several posts of people needing new tires at 4000 miles, but I've got 16000 miles on mine, including 3 track days. It's true that I've only dropped the clutch a couple of times, but I don't exactly baby my car: I practically live in VTEC, and I get around 18-19 MPG.

By the way, my fronts and rears are about evenly worn, but the right sides of all four tires show signs of melting (SIR is counter-clockwise!) I keep 'em at 34 PSI rear, 36 PSI front, cold.

Can anyone explain all this?

Ted

 

It is not so simple that a mileage calculation will always hold true. Temperature, surface, pressures, and driving style make a large difference. More than that some people continue to use their tires long after they have become dangerous, while others replace them with a little life left.

My first set made 8K including three track days but truthfully the rears were on for a thousand too long while the fronts were good for a thousand more. My current set will probably make 11-12K mostly because I have separate track tires.

I think the biggest difference is highway vs. street miles. It is too easy to rack up miles without excessive wear on the open road compared to scrubbing off tires having fun on tighter roads.

 

You can try getting an alignment and get the minimum amount of toe in and still stay within spec. It couls improve your tread life.
Just an option.
If I can help let me know.
Thank you

Jim 800-428-8355-364

 

I just went to Firestone to have them check some dropping pressure in my left front tire and when they got the car up on the lift I saw that the inside of the left front was bald... whether that's the cause of the leakage, I dunno, but with a drive to AZ and a track day within 2 weeks, I decided it's time for new fronts! (After 16k miles. For reference my rears were 100% bald at 10k)

Anyway, so even with $60 discount it cost me 480 odd bux. I have to start budgeting for 4 new tires every year at this rate!

So that's my observation, and here's my question -- are there cheaper places to get S02's (i.e. Tire Rack?), and what is it about my driving that makes the inside front left wear so much more than the inside front right? At 9k miles, I had all my wheels semi-aggressively aligned the same left vs right (with a person in the driver's seat), just before my first track day.

I was wondering if I take right turns harder than left turns, and maybe I can take it easier on those turns to even out my front tire wear?

 

If they are worn on the inside more than the outside you may want to take out a littel negative camber. The negative camber will improve handling but it will also make the inside shoulder wear unevenly.
Let me know if I can help.
Thank you

Jim 800-428-8355-364

 

In my experience toe has a larger affect on tire wear than does camber. When driving straight, a cambered tire is just going to compress a little bit more on one side, where as a toed tire will be constantly scrubbing sideways down the road.

The factory settings on the S2000 have zero toe in the front and a fair amount of toe in at the rear. So of course the rears will wear faster than the fronts, on average. Now, if you spend a lot of time plowing through corners, this will not be the case and you will see more front wear. But for average drivers expect rear wear to be higher.

So to get better tire wear reduce toe. But don't overdue it because you will be affecting the car's stability. The factory rear setting is 6mm +/- 2 mm toe in total. Try 4mm or even 3mm. You will get half the scrubbing and better wear.

Goldtrom, I think all your tires were worn out, I wouldn't recommend pushing them any further. And I think 9k miles is great. I got 3k on my last set, sounds like not much, but actually was more than I expected, given the type of driving I was doing.