Determining tire change intervals via analysis

Assuming mileage accumulates at 3,000 miles per year, how often should one replace tires. Houston environment.

Reply to
Max Tindell
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Michelin recommends you replace your tires when they are 6 years old, regardless of mileage.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

The reason why is that the chemicals in the tires break down over time.

This sounds like a reasonable recommendation.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

It is reasonable, but of course they are going to set that time- based limit rather low - after all, they want to sell tires. I'd say after 6 years inspect them very carefully for signs of checking or cracking. If you see signs of aging, you have some time to start looking for the tires you want on sale.

Of course, nobody brought up the other rule - "change them when they are worn out..." ;-P

Seriously, the wear bars showing on two adjacent tread strips are the absolute "gotta do it" level for the summer - but if they are getting close to the wear-bars as you head into the rainy season you probably want to get new tires a bit early.

Tires can be above the wear bars and technically still "good" and legal to drive on, but hit deep water at speed and they'll hydroplane like crazy. You start floating over the pavement because the tread block grooves aren't deep enough to get rid of the water.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Thanks, guys. I actually posted that kinda tongue-in-cheek, ala the lengthy thread on oil analysis.

This car is 5 1/2 years old and has 25K on it. We bought it 4 1/2 years ago with 10.5K miles on it. Not anywhere near the wear bars. BTW, it has OE Michelins.

I fully expect to replace them next year or so because of aging. I do check them over carefully when I rotate them.

Reply to
Max Tindell

And if they still look pristine down in the crevices between the tread blocks, let them go another year and check again. Be observant.

You don't want to throw tires away with 25,000 miles of tread life left on them based solely on an overly cautious time guideline from the tire maker - because I can GUARANTEE that the Tire Shop will take those "Totally Unsafe, too old to drive on" tires and sell them out the back door as "Used", and someone else will get the last bits of mileage out of them.

You'll look at your gardener's work truck next month, and those tires will look very familiar....

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Maybe so, but it has been my experience that many tires are toast even though they have plenty of tread left. In fact on the last two Expeditions I owned, I never actually wore a set down to the wear bars even though all the tires had well over 50k miles when replaced. When the tires got older they became noisy, or bumpy, or both. I just sold my 2003 Expedition. It had a set of Cross Terrains with plenty of tread left. The tires had a tad over

40k miles on them. If I had kept the truck, I was going to replace them because they were so noisy. I replaced the OE tires that came on the vehicle (Continentals) at 50k miles because they would not stay balanced. Even at 50k miles they had lots of tread left. It seem to me that the tire carcass can go bad (belts break, shift, etc) before the tread is actually worn out. And I think this is particularly true in my area because of the crumbling roads (thank you Gov. Mike Easley).

Ed White

Reply to
C. E. White

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