Do I have to replace all four tires?

I have 2006 Subaru Forester with 14,000 miles. Last week had a flat in a rear tire. Firestone fixed it--there were two short screws in the tread. A few days later, I had the 15,000 mile service done at the dealer and they rotated the tires. Now I have an almost flat tire in the front tire on the same side. I haven't taken it back to Firestone yet to see if they can re-patch but I think they are going to say it can't be fixed.

Am I going to have to replace all four tires? Our alley has plenty of junk and we can't really avoid driving through it to get to our garage, so flats are not uncommon. I hate to think every time I get a flat, I have to replace all the tires due to it being 4WD.

-yngver

Reply to
yngver
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A flat that can't be repaired, anyway. :/ I hate to say it, but you probably do need to replace all four tires. I did when it turned out that a tire on the new-to-me 1999 Forester I purchased a couple of months ago was defective and causing the car to pull to the right. I asked the Subaru-specialist mechanic I use (Steve Courtice at Suby Specialities in Monrovia, California -- Los Angeles area) and he said you should definitely replace all four tires unless the other three are nearly new. The issue is differences in tread depth that lead to tires having different circumferences.

Maybe some of the real Subaru/AWD nuts that hang out in this newsgroup can explain this better than I can. Since I'm no auto expert (I just drive them), I listen to the experts. :)

Reply to
Catherine Jefferson

FWIW, the Firestone "Mastercare" service model is: screw em hard, screw em once, and if they don't come back, that's fine. My independent mechanic used to work for them and finally left because of the way they did business and he no longer wanted to be screwing folks out of their money.

Sadly, you either have to replace all 4 (probably the option I'd choose at 14k, particularly since the stock tires on mine at least were lousy), or get the new one shaved down to the diameter of your present tires (if you can find a place that can do that and do it accurately).

Given your parking situation, you may want to consider the road hazard protection. Shop/compare on tirerack.com and then use that quote to leverage a local dealer to get you a good price. I wouldn't recommend buying from tirerack myself because your total cost of maintenance ends up higher unless you have the discipline and patience to rotate your own tires at the interval you're supposed to. If you can get a local tire dealer to order what you want and match a tirerack price, you end up ahead because of the free rotate/balance you generally get with a local dealer when they install tires you bought from them.

Best Regards,

-- Todd H.

2001 Legacy Outback Wagon, 2.5L H-4 Chicago, Illinois USA
Reply to
Todd H.

No owners manual with the car? That would tell you for sure. On my Audi quattro, you only have to replace tires on the same axle, or just make sure the treadwear is within 3 - 5% (based on mileage). Not sure why Subaru would make you replace all four. But again, read the manual.

Dan D (formerly) '99 Legacy L 30th (son's) Central NJ USA

Reply to
Dano58

yngver wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

All of the tires on your AWD Subaru must be within 1/4 of an inch of rolling circumference (part that touches the road). This is because of our All Wheel Drive System.

Source

Reply to
Fuzzy Logic

In theory, you could reduce the pressure in the new tire slightly (and increase the pressure in the other 4 slightly) so its hub is precisely the same distance from the ground as it's axle mate. But in the real world, that could lead to poor handling. If they are high service life tires - you're probably OK at 14K miles difference. Put the new one on the front so it wears a little faster. Best is to have it shaved - hard to find shops that will do it and the money spent could also go towards buying the other 3 tires. Tough call. Maybe your Subaru dealership knows of a shop that will shave a tire down. IMHO they should!

This an issue with other AWD vehicles I think. Even some odd experiments with marking the tires and driving forward in large parking lots to measure rolling circumference, etc.

Carl

Reply to
Carl 1 Lucky Texan

definitely

you have an option of trading in your subaru for a one wheel drive car or an undiluted P.O.S. with a part time "4wd" system like a cr-v or rav4

Reply to
isquat

Carl - no, it's not, see my response above. I would really like someone to read their owner's manual and post what it says. Unfortunately, my son's car's manual is with his car in the scrapyard!

Here is some other info for reference -

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Again, we know what opinions are like, so that's why I suggested the OP RTFM!

Dan D (formerly) '99 Legacy L 30th (son's) Central NJ USA

Reply to
Dano58

Thanks. I don't particularly like Firestone but they are two blocks (walking distance) from my house, so when we get a flat that's where we go because we can walk home. Now they say they can't find any reason the tire got low again. They said they can't find a leak and the patch is holding. I did notice the valve stem cap was gone and I know it was there a couple days ago, so maybe someone fiddled with it in a parking lot. That's about all I can think of. I'm just watching it now to see if it starts to lose air again.

I asked my husband if he thinks Firestone is so incompetent they couldn't find a leak--he's been there often enough--and he said that although they do try to rip you off, he never found their work to be faulty. I mean, they could have just said it can't be fixed and I need new tires. Do you think if there is a problem, they are just too dumb to figure out what it is? It does seem strange that if someone let the air out of a tire, it would be the one that I just had fixed.

The tires are original, Yokohama Geolanders. Before we knew there was nothing wrong with the tire, we called the dealer and of course they are plenty ready to replace the tires with new Yokohama Geolanders.

My husband has a '99 Subaru Legacy and the same thing happened to him-- he had a flat after about a year. He only replaced two tires and nothing dire happened (he now has about 130K miles on the car) but he might have had fewer miles on it at the time. Still, it was at least

10K. He was sort of steamed about having to replace two tires, much less all four.

When I buy new tires--and I guess from what I read, and from what it says on Subaru.com, I'll have to replace all four--I would certainly get road hazard protection. But the original tires didn't come with that.

-yngver

Reply to
yngver

Section 11-43 of 2003 Forester's owner manual says: For safe vehicle operation, Subaru recommends replacing all four tires at the same time.

I just bought 4 tires at tirerack, no complaints.

I had an old 4 wd Ford Aerostar high mileage, once I did just replace

2 tires on same axle, that had a non repairable flat. Didn't notice any difference, of course handling wasn't its strong point. my .02
Reply to
mred

Um, I suppose it's possible you have a 'porous' casting that is seeping. Not unheard of and sometimes having an alloy wheel's 'inside' (the surface you see when no tire is mounted) sprayed with a sealant helps. I'd like to think the shop would spot a crack or obvious defect.

dunno

Carl

Reply to
Carl 1 Lucky Texan

As an aside, My '06 Forester suffered a slit Yokohama at 4,000 miles. I figured it was the usual poor quality OEM stuff, and found that a replacement would have been about $130.00. Instead, I bit the bullet and replaced all four with Toyo Z800 Plus tires and am a happy camper. Aside from being a 100,000 mile rated tire, they are way quieter- road noise was reduced to the level where one can carry on a conversation at highway speeds.I would recommend them for daily drivers. I don't know how they are for racer boy types, as I don't drive that way.

Dave

Reply to
The Other Dave

Thanks. The pressure is down to 29 from 30 yesterday, just in that one tire, but that could just be normal variation or my technique in using the tire gauge that Firestone gave me, I guess. If it keeps going down a little bit each day, that would account for it taking a week to get low enough for the car to pull to that side, I guess. Since it was fine before Firestone patched it and the Subaru dealer rotated it to the front, could either of those things have caused this kind of seeping? Firestone said they tested it in water and couldn't find any leak. My husband wants to make them re-do the patch but I don't know whether that will help.

-yngver

Reply to
yngver

WoW...

I'm at 52,000+ on my second set of Geolander on my '03 Forester. With good care, I normally get around 60,000 on rear wheels drive cars. Michelin, Bridgestone, Continental, et cetera.

I'm not exceptionally slow driver, but had hunting friends at the largest tire store in town. Balancing, pressure test and rotation was frequent. My second set looks like the are ready for replacement within 65,000. I have no problems with the performance of the tires, but the milage is pretty poor, I think.

I know the issue of tires have been discussed several times, but can anybody give me a final and agreed upon tires for all around purpose on the Forester?

I would really appreciate it...

H.

(Words are cheap. How can we be sure? "Rebecca".)

BTW; - As of now top posting is the requirement in this news group!!! are encourageds, perfect grammar is NOT required! In the heat of discussions fingers tend to hit the wrong key... Those of you who enjoy Paris and alcohol, can certainly understand this!!! (I do).

REMEMBER: Think TOP POSTING!!!

Reply to
number 9

You all did not listen to the new group RULES!!! TOP POSTING IS MANDATORY!!! Anyone violating this rule will be banned from the Internet (formely the DOD ARPAnet ";- Advanced Reachur

Reply to
number 9

You do not have toi replace all 4. Do the math - tires rated for 50k miles . Start with 5/32 tread depth.14k is about 20% so that tire s are at 4/32 tread. put a new tire on with 5/32"tread. Dont tell me

1/32" matters! Subaru cant get a head gasket right so Idoubt their AWD is so precise 1/32" will cause damge

Reply to
bigjim

at the risk of embarassing myself, 1/32 x 2=1/16 reduction in diameter. x pi = 3/16+ . This is still under the 1/4" difference in circumference that Subaru claims needs to be adhered to.

So yep, you're good.

Carl

Reply to
Carl 1 Lucky Texan

Only thing I have heard was, one guy went through center differentals because he had Different sized tires on the front and rear, and the Diff was Always working. Not sure if it makes a difference between R/L tires. With a limited slip axel, That would be constantly working and may wear it out. Not sure what one smaller or larger tire would do, but I'd want to know before buying 2 or 4 tires. If you have to, that is one thing, if not, why do it?

About tires. A few years back, Popular Mechanics said, you could fix a Hole in a tire by having it vulcanized. The size holes were like 2" dia in the tread, and 2 1/2" in the sidewall. I had a 1" cut in the sidewall of a new tire, and a vulcanizer wouldn't fix it. Wanted to sell me a tire. I bought tube patches and patched it myself. Then I saw Sidewall Patches that were reinforced. If it is a puncture, there are plug patches with a stem and patch attached.

Vince F

Reply to
houndman

What would happen if this rule is not observed?

Reply to
peter

"peter" wrote in news:Bbbgi.6172$G85.1397@trndny08:

Exceeding this 1/4-inch difference in tire circumference can place unnecessary wear on drivetrain components, possibly causing them to wear out prematurely.

Source

Reply to
Fuzzy Logic

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