Does the Taurus eat tires?

Been googling and talking to co-workers and can't find any kind of consensus. My 2004 Ford Taurus has just eaten through its second set of tires in 4 years. First set was relatively expensive (Triple Treads, experienced severe cupping and inner tread wear after 18 months/30,000 miles). Second set was cheaper (Cientra Plus) and, at last rotation, I was informed that they are about shot (after about

36,000 miles). My driving conditions:

-60 miles commute per day on paved country highways with no traffic or potholes, just two reductions in speed to pass through small towns along the way.

-Northern plains state i.e. snow, ice, and melting solvents on roads.

-Some potholes in parking lots at work but I try to avoid them.

I don't peel out or brake excessively. Thoughts? Could it be my particular car (rather than Tauruses in general) eating the tires? I bought it used with about 20,000 miles on it. Thanks.

Reply to
MNRebecca
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  1. Find a real alignment shop, a shop that specializes in alignments and nothing else. Not a tire shop. Find some racer kids and ask them who does race car alignments in your area. Get a real alignment done by someone who knows what they are doing, not the tire store kids.
  2. Put some chalk on your tires and drive around for a bit. Drive around corners. Adjust your inflation pressure so the wear on the chalk is even and that the chalk on the sidewall never wears at all even in sharp curves. The guy at the alignment shop may be willing to help with this.
  3. Mark the tire inflation pressures that are optimal in your owner's manual and check your tire pressure every time you get gas. If there are major temperature changes outside, there will be changes in your tire pressure.

My bet is that most of your problem has to do with incorrect inflation; if you can actually do the chalk lines and get the correct contact, do that. If you can't, or until you do, use the numbers on the door of the car or in the owner's manual. Don't just inflate all the tires to the maximum pressure; that is a recipe for poor handling and cupping.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Before or after having the new tires put on? Would there be any benefit to having the new tires in place when I get the alignment done (like getting help with the chalk experiment)? It might be possible to get the tires put on and the alignment performed the same day...but they might have to happen a week apart.

In general, does it take overinflating or underinflating to avoid the sidewall wear? Or is there no general pattern?

Thanks for the great response, by the way.

Reply to
MNRebecca

A short search on Tirerack indicates those Triple Treads should have a rating of about 600, which should give pretty good life.

Sometimes what you paid has little to do with the treadlife. (Ask some Porsche owners). My last set of OEM high buck Michelins lasted less than 30,000. They were quiet, and sticky, but werent meant for long life.

Did you rotate these tires religiously? That is more important now than ever before.

Otherwise, like Scott said, get your car checked for alignment front and back. You can eat up a set of tires before you know it if alignment is poor. If you can find a really good frame shop, for example, they will have equipment and experience that cheapo franchise alignment bays wont have.

Reply to
hls

If your tires are severely cupped, the chalk test won't work properly, but as long as your tires are in decent condition, it will. But, if you put different tires on your car, the proper inflation pressure may be a little different.

The alignment can be done with any tires on the car at all, so you might as well get that done first.

If it's underinflated, the sidewall will touch the pavement in a turn and that's bad. If it's overinflated, the tire balloons outward and only the center of the tire touches, so you get more wear in the center and poorer handling and traction from the reduced contact area.

Either one will severely reduce your tire lifetime, and unfortunately when you put tires on the car that aren't the tires it came with, the recommendation in the owner's manual may not precisely apply. It's certainly a good ballpark though (and the maximum rating on the tire sidewall is NOT a good ballpark although some service station people seem to think it is).

Thank you. Tires are important, they keep you from dying.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Is it really? With modern tires being directional you can only swap them front and back when you rotate... does that really make that much of an improvement in equalizing wear?

I have to admit to being lazy about rotating myself.

Don't go to to the cheapo franchise places. A bad alignment is usually worse than none at all.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

that's typically bad shocks.

that's typically alignment, but alignment can be put out by worn bushings, particularly on cheaply made vehicles like the taurus.

you don't say what mileage you have on this vehicle, but i'd guess it's higher mileage, and both the bushings and shocks are worn. [they tend to go hand-in-hand.] you should spend some money getting both replaced, then get the vehicle properly aligned. provided you don't have any frame damage, you should be fine after that.

Reply to
jim beam

good point. rotation is largely a legacy of bias ply tires and not particularly relevant to modern radials. in europe, many vehicle manufacturers specify to /not/ rotate, but here, legal cowardice seems to over-ride the reality that:

  1. rotation doesn't improve actual wear - only the appearance of wear. putting an unworn tire on a station that's wearing doesn't mean the wear is not happening at the same rate, just not on the same tire.
  2. rotation can actually decrease road traction. if a tire is worn to fit the sense of a particular station, moving it to another station with a different wear sense means it has less rubber in contact with the pavement, thus less traction. pursuing the the visual appearance of "even wear" at the expense of traction and therefore safety is retarded.
  3. some uneven tire wear is inevitable, particularly on macpherson strut where suspension geometry is poorly controlled put that on front wheel drive with uneven driveshaft length, and that effect will be even more apparent. beyond that however, good alignment is frequently neglected, particularly causes like bushing wear. bushings can be either expensive or difficult to replace, so most people don't bother. or they're simply unaware. when the inevitable poor alignment control issues surface, i.e. uneven tire wear, people simply rotate so the visual effects of that wear are less obvious.

it's not lazy, it's smart.

yes and no. some of the franchises use really good machines that even monkeys have a hard time getting wrong. my local sears uses a hunter alignment machine that is for all practical purposes, idiot proof. they don't even need to fit the sensors on the wheels properly - a major problem in the past. as long as they roll the vehicle on the lift like they're supposed to, the sensors map each wheel plane and the computer guides them through alignment so they get it pretty much dead-on each and every time. even on a 4-wheel alignment vehicles like my civics - something that used to be rare/impossible to get in the past..

Reply to
jim beam

Yes, it seems to. But it isnt just the treadwear that is effected.

Like you, I tended to avoid the rotation cycle.

I had a new set of "good" Michelins on my van and let them run over the recommendation. Noticed they were wearing unevenly, cupping, noisy, vibrating. Took them back to the tire shop (Discount Tire, Lufkin, Texas) and they told me lack of rotation was causing this. When I rotated them, of course, the rear tires were in better shape and the noise stopped. I continued to rotate them through the life of the vehicle and got

72,000 miles on that set.

Similar happened to our Avalon. Michelins got only 30,000. Replaced them with Kumho' s and am getting much better wear, but noticed at about 10000 the ride was deteriorating, noisy, etc. Rotated and it is a-ok for now.

Reply to
hls

tires don't do this on their own, only if there is an underlying cause.

masks the symptoms - doesn't address the cause.

tires with only 50% contact do indeed tend to be quieter!

Reply to
jim beam

Apparently they do. This vehicle had nothing wrong with it. Shocks were new and in good condition (Bilsteins), alignment was good, and no worn suspension parts. That is why I, at first did not rotate. I should have.

There was no mechanical defect...before I took the vehicle for rotation. Discount Tire used their Torque Stix, and the rotors warped within a couple of weeks. Note that I had had no rotor problems before this happened.

Im not sure what point you are trying to make. There would have been no significant contact difference between the Michelins and the Kumhos. Both were quiet at first. The Michelins were still quiet when they wore down to the wear bars.

I do not expect the Kumhos to be as quiet as those particular Michelins, although they are very good tires. The Kumhos are a lot harder compound,should last a long time. Traction is good, but probably not as good as the much softer Michelins.

Above, I should have said I rotated and had the tires rebalanced. They returned them to like new performance.

There is nothing wrong with the alignment or suspension on this Avalon either.

Reply to
hls

IMHO yes. I can't speak to the OP's car, but my experiences with FWD Impalas (used as company cars at my employer for at least the last 5 years) is that they chew up the outsides of the front tires at a shocking rate, and in fact, they probably ought to be rotated more often than even the most conscientious people do (every 7000 miles, which is when we get the oil changed.)

I do run my tires at a little bit higher than recommended pressure (33-35 PSI vs. 30 PSI) and that seems to help a little but tire wear is still not great.

nate

Reply to
N8N

VERY common problem with all FWD vehicles. With a RWD vehicle the rear tires pushed the vehicle and ran in a straight line with some side loading through corners. Front steered the vehicle with angular loading due to Ackerman geometry and loading through turns.

On a FWD vehicle the rear tires do little other than act as trailer tires supporting the rear of the vehicle. About the only load is minor sidewall loading in corners. BUT the front tires are getting beat to death, They have to drag around all the weight, steer the vehicle, provide 80% of the braking as well as handle the vibration and torque inputs from the engine.

In the fleet vehicles I used to drive the company never wanted the tires rotated. On the Caravans we ran it was very common to still have factory tires on the rear at 100K miles, with a lot of tread left, and have chewed through at least 4 sets of front tires.

As for modern tires being directional, Only if they are performance tires with directional tread is that the case. Common tires can handle rotational changes easily, UNLESS they have been subjected to serious abuse (burnouts, slamming on the brakes and the like) Then you may get the plies to shift enough the reversing the rotation causes problems.

Reply to
Steve W.

if these tires are not running on the center line, these vehicles need to be realigned. one of the problems with fwd macphersons, especially ones with sloppy longitudinal positioning like the impala, is that when driven hard [fleet vehicles], the drive torque has an effect on alignment. the factory setting is an average for "average" driving. if your fleet's "average" driving differs from that, they need to be aligned with slightly more toe out to compensate for the actual loads.

Reply to
jim beam

In message , jim beam writes

I've just looked up your sig in a Latin dictionary. Nomina = Name Rutrum = Shovel, Spade or trowel. What does it mean when it's combined as it is?

Reply to
Clive

if there was nothing wrong, the tires wouldn't cup. there is no mechanism within ordinary tire rotation that supports that wear mode.

if there's hop and bounce because of worn bushings [bilsteins cannot compensate for that], then the tires will cup.

again, alignment can seem ok, but it's a static measurement. dynamic loading puts different stresses on bushings, and worn bushings will allow the loaded position of suspension members to be in a different average location than any static alignment assumes.

that can't be actually true, even if you believe it to be - otherwise you wouldn't be experiencing any problem.

just covering the symptoms - doesn't address the cause.

for many vehicles, this "warping" is a wheel seating issue, not actual deformation of the disk.

and "torque stix" are only good if the impulse of the driver is known. think about it - they're torsionally flexible thus limit torque only for a specific impulse. if the input impulse is different [say different brand of driver], the output impulse is proportional, not fixed.

not all of a tire tread is on the ground, particularly when worn. the individual blocks wear and if you look closely, you'll see they tend to slope with a combination of rotation direction and dominant traction or braking force. if you want to see this for yourself, rub chalk onto a smooth surface like the shiny side of some high density particle board, and roll the tire over it. you'll see how much of the rubber actually touches the chalk. based on what you've said here, i think you'll be surprised.

once that wear is established, moving that tire to another station means that wear pattern keeps part of the rubber block off the ground. that can easily be 50% of the contact area. thus you can get crazy numbers like up to 50% less traction.

michelin spend more on research than practically all the other tire companies combined. if you want a quiet tire, they'll make a quiet tire, even if you're rotating them.

believe it or not, "new" performance can be less than those that have worn in, particularly for dry surfaces. that's why tires typically have labels warning you about braking excessively during the first few hundred miles. it's also part of the reason why racers shave their tires.

so you say, but what is the mileage? have you inspected the bushings under load? how many curbs have you struck?

Reply to
jim beam

call a spade a spade.

Reply to
jim beam

MNRebecca wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@b4g2000pra.googlegroups.com:

And your milage is? without knowing what sort of driving you actually do, milage is the easiest way to measure that. I'm not saying you're trying to break the record for Le Mans, but it surely is a determining factor.

Reply to
chuckcar

What does "rotate" mean???

I have NEVER rotated tires and get 60-80,000 miles per set!

We have a guy around here that is a MASTER! After he gets it lined up, he does it AGAIN to set the wheel straight.

Reply to
Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B

Toyota, I am told, will not honor certain parts of their warrant if you do not warranty according to their directions

If you dont want to rotate, and are happy with your tire life, good for you.

Reply to
hls

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