I have an '03 S2000 with the original tires. How long should the tires last? I have about 17,000 miles. What should I look for to know they need to be replaced? These are obviously different tires than the normal sedans which had deeper treads. Also what kind should I replace them with if they need replacing? I just do street and hwy driving.

Also, I drove from Northern CA to Southern CA yesterday with all that rain. The worst part was Paso Robles to about South of San Luis Obispo. I noticed that the car was having a hard time staying straight in certain stretches. I had to slow down considerably and even then sometimes I'd get this funny shimmy. I think it was cause the tires have very little tread and on the slicker parts of the highway, the car has nothing to "grab" on the road. It was a bit scary at times. Do you think that's what it was?

 

I have ~15k miles on my set of original tires and have just started noticing a shimmy between 80-90mph, although it happend at 40mph the other day. From the searches I've done the cause seems to be the tires need replaced.

The tread seems to be fairly worn but I don't remember what they used to look like, I bought used. From what I can tell most people seem to replace the stock tires by 10k miles or have upgraded to bigger rims/tires anyway.

 

Tire life is going to depend on a bunch of factors, so it's hard to say how far gone your tires are based on mileage alone... I have a '02 S2000 and got about 15k-18k out of my S02's. There are wear bars on the side of the tires that you can look at to see how much life is left. But if you're feeling a "shimmy", then you might want to look underneath the car and check out the inner tread. It's possible that the inner tread is worn out more than the outside.

 

The most significant factor is how you drive. I got <12,000 mikes out of my rear S02s and 18,000 out of the fronts. Your mileage will vary. Be very careful as aquaplanning is a real problem

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Depending on your driving style 10-18k I would guess.

 

I do mostly highway driving and can squeeze out about 20K. After that it gets very dicey.

 

The shimmy in the rain is definitely due to little tread in your rear tires. I had the same experience. The rear tires are more important than the front for stability reasons. Don't risk it, replace your tires immediately!

I've mixed tires before (Bridgestone-front, Kumho-rear), they don't look good, but I don't think there's huge safety issues. However, no tread in rain is a huge safety issue.

I expect 10,000 - 15,000 of good tread miles on the rears. Up to 20,000 - 25,000 miles up front. I just drive in the streets and freeways.

 

I recommend getting new tires once you get that shimmying in the rain. I waited a bit too long and ended up spinning off the highway, and I only had 8k on the tires.

 

Change them

 

That "shimmying" is called hydroplaning. Slow down and replace your tires or you're going to end up a statistic.