I have noticed with my RE-11A's that there are two different levels of wear bars, meaning that one set is shorter than the other on the same tire in the same block of tread. Have you guys ever seen this? I haven't before these. At which point should the tires be replaced - at the higher bar or at the lower bar?

 

You talking about the triangle?

If you have a tire guage, once it says 2/32, change those tires

 

Run them down like any tire, till you hit the secondary layer of rubber before the belts poke through. That's how i roll

 

how do you manage to drive O_O

 

Haha. I think I'll pass on that one. However, if I can correctly time a track day...

No tire gauge unfortunately. I thought pics might help:

Here's the "high" one:


The "low" one:


And both of them together:

 

I don't think that small lower one is a wear bar, its just a little knob left from mold. You still look to have a good amount of tread on that tire. As far as safety goes, id be way more apt to run a tire to marginal levels on the street then on the track where your reaching triple the speeds, heat and task.

But yeah tread is important for water dispersion to help prevent hydroplaning. If your already running an extreme summer compound tire in the wet, your getting sub par traction compared to an all season, you just adjust your driving, or drive another car when the weather is shitty, so driving on a summer comp tire with minimal to no tread left in fair conditions really isn't that big of a deal as the tire typically provides plenty of safe grip levels for regular driving until you get down to the secondary layer of rubber.

Shit if I'm going through two sets of rears and one set up front every year, damn right I will use them completely up! Fresher tires get the track days and run them down on the street and drive accordingly to road conditions. Typically the whole tread width doesn't wear completely even at same rate due to track alignment so there is almost always some tread left on tire half way across for "safety"

 

Thanks for the thorough reply. Yeah I know I still have a decent amount of tread left. I did, however, burn through a lot at an autocross novice school last weekend, which just got me thinking about tire life in general. Safety too, as we approach summer thunderstorms down here. Makes sense that the lower bars are just knobs left from the mold. They did look super low anyway. Getting married in June, so I'm just trying to figure out how many expenses we have coming up before we decide how much $ to blow on the honeymoon.

 

Yeah well I can only afford to have one woman in my life, so I pick the one that doesn't talk back

 

one could be for when you should stop driving in the rain and the other could be when you should replace them. unless you mean that bump below the wear bar.. that is not for wear..

Im with junky though, i run my tires till they are just about corded. Rain is a rarity around here.

 

Once the tread is gone they are not very good in rain, but frankly I have found in the dry they work OK until the cord makes noise or shows. I usually go through two sets of rear to one front but it is hard to time so usually there is so usable rubber pulled off. I wouldn't get too concerned about running them down unless you do much high speed running in the wet.