parrothead Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Found this comment on the lexus website regarding 18" wheels and tires.... ***Please ask your local Lexus dealer for pricing information. [3] Tires fitted with 17- or 18-in wheels are expected to experience greater tire wear than conventional tires. Tire life may be substantially less than 20,000 miles (17-in) or 15,000 miles (18-in), depending on driving conditions. For what it's worth...hmmmm ~for every vision there is an equal and opposite revision~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgnoon Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 And they even admit to it On Air during their Radio Ads. a certain friend of mine (with a 95 concours) and I were recently talking about how ubelievable that was. Then this week I find out that my sister, who drives a Mazda 3, is being told by the dealership that she should replace her tires VERY soon....she's got 18 thousand miles on the car. I haven't gotten to look at the tires yet, but I've GOT to see this. What the hell kind of rubber are they using now?!? :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonA Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Cheap rubber. A lot of OE tires last 25% of the life of normal replacement tires. Remember that OEs buy tires for like $80 on the set...for something we'd pay $80 each for. Jason(2001 STS, White Diamond) "When you turn your car on...does it return the favor?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regis Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 I recall another discussion awhile back about the issue of who received the first and best cut of the tires. If memory serves me correct I believe the auto manufacturers received the top cut, the tire brand centers (Goodyear, Michelin,etc.) second cut, tire centers (Sears, Kost, Dunn, etc) third cut, and the outlets and wholesale centers (WallyWorld, Sam's, Costco,etc.) last cut. Could the extra or excessive tire wear be attibuted to the fact that cars and trucks today are considerably faster and more powerful? Also it seems that virtually every car on the market now comes with high performance tires. I believe High Performance tends to equal High Wear. And the performance ratings for tires keeps climbing. Personally I'm holding out for the zwf tires (z warp factor). "Burns" rubber " I've never considered myself to be all that conservative, but it seems the more liberal some people get the more conservative I become. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonA Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 I recall another discussion awhile back about the issue of who received the first and best cut of the tires. If memory serves me correct I believe the auto manufacturers received the top cut, the tire brand centers (Goodyear, Michelin,etc.) second cut, tire centers (Sears, Kost, Dunn, etc) third cut, and the outlets and wholesale centers (WallyWorld, Sam's, Costco,etc.) last cut. I'm not sure if I agree that. That may have been a misunderstanding turned in the wrong direction. For example, there are OE versions of the tires (which are usually biased towards fuel economy...hard tread pattern). You can't generally buy these in a retail store. In addition, there are also many tires (like the Uniroyal Radial A/S and Goodyear Viva for instance) that are only available at Wal-Mart. The Michelin X Radial is only available at Sam's, Costco, and B.J.s. There's really no "heirarchy" of distribution there because each outlet has a dedicated source upstream. Jason(2001 STS, White Diamond) "When you turn your car on...does it return the favor?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regis Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 You know Jason sometimes I think you would've made a good politician. I don't mean that in a bad way necessarily. You argue much in the same way as my father does. When I said ".....who received the first and best cut of the tires." I was refering to same model tires, not specialty tires nor tires exclusive to a particular store or chain but tire models that can be found most anywhere without exclusivity. "Burns" rubber " I've never considered myself to be all that conservative, but it seems the more liberal some people get the more conservative I become. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDK Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 IMHO, Since the distinction was made between 17" and 18" rims, with the larger wearing worse, I would venture to say that the lack of sidewall-flex contributes to wear. Technically, if the side wall can not flex as much under normal conditions (like small steering adjustments etc), then the tire itself probably has more "scrubbing force" consistently applied to it against the road. Sure they handle great and all, but again - there is no free lunch. More tire contact and friction against the road (side forces primarily) - will result in more tire wear. Here are some other "market-logic" arguments: Very few buyers of high-fad tires ever bother to consider the horrible, rougher ride, and potential rim damage. So why would these "fashion-gurus" ever consider something as trivial as "tire wear" as anything to do with buying tires? Buyers of "performance tires" expect the softer rubber and their aggressive driving to grind up the tires as well. So no complaints from that crowd either. Does anyone really believe that a tire manufacturer would advertise that the tiny sidewalls wear tires out faster? Car makers will sell - any option that sells. This includes poor mileage power trains, poor wearing tires, high maintenance whatever-options... the list goes on and on. Don't even ask about the "automobile aficionados" buying 20" or even 22" rims with series 20? tires. That discussion starts to include "painted-on" tires, etc. It would be interesting to follow up on this thread with an unbiased source. Again, simply all IMHO Add power to leave problems behind. Most braking is just - poor planning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parrothead Posted November 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 As I was having my half price (pro-rated) tires installed at the Goodyear store, the tech informed me that these were OEM tires, Eagle LS. Huh? was my response. He says the steel belts are of a tighter wind, whatever that means. I guess the bottom line was, these are better tires than the LS they sell. I must mention there was a big hellabalu about getting me the right tires. I was nice as could be and got what I wanted. It took them 3 weeks to get the tires but I didn't care I was riding on their tires in the meantime.. ohh about 2500 miles. I was replacing some Dunlap Sport A2 that became cupped at 30,000 miles. Not a bad deal. ~for every vision there is an equal and opposite revision~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonA Posted November 2, 2005 Report Share Posted November 2, 2005 As I was having my half price (pro-rated) tires installed at the Goodyear store, the tech informed me that these were OEM tires, Eagle LS. Huh? was my response. He says the steel belts are of a tighter wind, whatever that means. I guess the bottom line was, these are better tires than the LS they sell. A "tighter wind"?? I hope my aftermarket tires don't "unravel" themselves, being that they aren't wound so tight. Not getting on you, but what that dealer told you was B.S. There are sometimes differences in rubber compounds and tread patterns, but the belts aren't wound any "tighter" on OE versions. What he's probably saying is the OE version will ride a bit harder, since it's biased towards fuel economy, so the belts must be "tighter" because the tire feels crisper?? Jason(2001 STS, White Diamond) "When you turn your car on...does it return the favor?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parrothead Posted November 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2005 I don't know... I have an appointment to get the tires rotated on Friday. I'll inquire again and post his quote later that day. ~for every vision there is an equal and opposite revision~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danbuc Posted November 3, 2005 Report Share Posted November 3, 2005 The 350Z suffers from premature front tires wear as well (especially the earliest production models. This was due to a design flaw thoguh, which I don't think has even been corrected yet. Apparently they offer an adjustment at the dealer to make it better or something. Do they mention how the tires are wearing? (i.e. sawtooth or feathered pattern on a particular part, balding on a particalur part...ect). I bet they fudged something up with the suspenion geometry, and just don't want to admit it, so they blame it on the wheels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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