Life of front tyres on hard driven fwd cars

Dave Baker · 2008-04-30T11:23:57+00:00

When I bought my Focus 2.0 ESP at 33k miles it had Michelin Pilot Primacies on the front and Firestones on the back so clearly the fronts had already been changed once. Tyres are 205/50/16s. After another 15k miles the fronts are down from about 6mm tread to 3mm so approx 5k per mm which means they have about another 5k in them which will take me to 53,000 miles total for two sets of tyres. The rears will probably be about ready to change at the same time.Given that new tyres have about 8mm tread but wear a lot faster to start with that would indicate these current ones had already done maybe 6000 or 7000 miles when I bought it, will last 26 or 27k in total and that ties in exactly with the first set also lasting about the same distance.Given the grip level and how hard I use it that seems pretty damn good to me. I don't recall getting that much life out of the fronts on previous fwd cars but then those only had 185 section tyres on them (Fiestas and the like). Maybe the narrower tyres have to work harder and wear out faster or maybe quality rubber like the Michelins gives you both grip and life in the same package. I also think that the excellent suspension on the Focus keeps the tyres flatter to the ground than on older cars which means they aren't grinding away the outer edges quite so much when you hoon it round corners.Just curious as to how people with similar cars (1300kg, 140 bhp), driven fairly hard, have managed on quality rubber.