Tires; this thread is about balding tires!

Seriously, my vintage friends, I saw several of you out there this weekend down in Maryland -- like me -- who've let your rear tires get dangerously worn. Replacing my 17" 245s is over $200/tire, but it's gotta' be done, and I'm placing my order tomorrow. I've gotten 14,000 miles on mine, and that's probably 3,000 too many.

I really, really, really don't want to hear about any of my new vintage friends spinning out. It's certainly shaping up to be a wet spring around here, so my advice is bite the bullet and get new rubber!

-- Your friendly neighborhood Chazmo

 

Good advice buddy. I hadn't paid attention to mine because I "only" have 9,500 miles on them. Guess what? Damn near bald. And to top it off, Jonas and I drove through some heavy rains in PA on the way home from SF. I never felt a car DO THAT! We ended up going 48MPH on the freeway and even that got dicey. Placed an order for 2 fresh S02's.

 

Exactly, Carmen... 9500 is actually quite a lot for the S-02s, Carmen. Mine were pretty close to bald at 7000.

 

Rick, Tom and I had a little discussion about this on Friday night. You might want to consider an alternative such as the Michelin Pilot Sport tire (among others). I understand they have much better wet traction and a significantly longer life. I've heard that Tire Rack can give you some very good advice about this.

 

It's definitely all trade-offs, Rob. You might be able to increase tread life, but probably at the expense of grip.

The S-03s on Neb lasted quite a bit longer than the S-02s, and probably only sacrificed a little bit in terms of performance (as I +1'd them from stock)... Next time, I'll probably go for the OEM tires on the '04 (RE050 is the designation, I think)...

Best wishes. Drive safe in the rain.

 

HAHA - Tires, huh??? Good advice, Chaz! I just got new S02s on the front, but the back ones are OK for now.

 

Very good advice. I have 7600 miles on mine and they still have some tread left however I'm going to replace them no later than 10k miles. I too looked into getting a diffrent tire for replacements but I'm going to wait until all four need replacing. We all should remember also that replacement tires will need to be ordered in a larger size than the S-02's.