Tire Mileage

[davemartin88]

In the last week, two of four original equipment tires on my F150 SuperCrew pickup have failed with tears in the tread. Have the spare on and will be off to replace the original tires today. My mileage is about 34,000 and was wondering how this might compare to other people's experience? Based on tread wear, I thought I would be able to get about 40k miles from the tires. In the last two years, we bought property that requires us to travel on more gravel roads and I pull a trailer regularly, maybe that was a factor. The wear patterns are not unusual but the tread just gave away on both tires. Is less than 34k miles that far off the norm?

 

[REWahoo]

How old are the tires? Sounds to me like an age problem rather than wear failure.

Tire Tech Information - Determining the Age of a Tire

 

[Walt34]

I got a little over 60k miles on the OEM tires on my '03 GMC K1500 (1/2 ton) pickup. However it's not a heavy hauler, I wanted the volume, not the weight carrying ability. I towed a heavy U-haul trailer a couple of times, maybe 1k miles.

Very little driving on gravel roads.

 

[rescueme]

Could it be due to age related failure rather than mileage?

I ask since I'm looking at replacement of tires on my '02 Mustang GT, even though there is plenty of tread left at the nine year mark, with 18K on the odometer.

I drive it very little (and only locally, at low speeds) but I do think about replacing them due to age.

 

[eytonxav]

As mentioned check the date code on the tires, but I would assume Ford would not be installing older tires from the factory, at least I hope not.

My son's 2006 Honda Ridgeline came with Michelin tires and he got 75k out of them and it was not tread wear that recently prompted us to replace, but the side walls were starting to crack. I was astounded at how long these tires lasted as many OEM tires are terrible.

 

[REWahoo]

My son's 2006 Honda Ridgeline came with Michelin tires and he got 75k out of them and it was not tread wear that recently prompted us to replace, but the side walls were starting to crack. I was astounded at how long these tires lasted as many OEM tires are terrible.

I think it is a real crapshoot when it comes to OEM tires. My SIL got less than 30k out of the Michelin's on her 2009 Honda Odyssey while we got 75k out of the Goodyear Integrity tires on our 2008 Honda Pilot.

 

[Rustic23]

We got 63,000 on our OEM 2007 Pilot.

 

[SteveL]

If you google "tire life factors" you will find a large number of things to read. Somewhere in all that are some ideas that will help you understand your situation.

 

[Texas Proud]

I got 60K on the Explorer.... but only 30K on my TL (they were summer sport tires and were shot at 25K)...

Funny thing is that the lady in the office across the hall had a flat yesterday... she went to get it fixed and they said she still had enough tread that she did not need new tires... looked it up and found she had 100,000 miles on the tires... she bought a new set...

 

[Telly]

43k and eight years on the original Goodyear's on my F-150. Mileage per year went waaaay down on ER . Little to no gravel roads, most all on concrete, which wears tires quicker than asphalt or rolled tar/cinders. Some towing at interstate speeds. The first original tire to go bad developed a small bump on the sidewall.

The original tires were Goodyear AT, RT, or something like that. They should have been called RF, for Rain Floaters. Switched to Michelin LTX, a little more tread noise on the road, but vastly better wet traction, both on acceleration and braking. The 4W ABS never has to work anymore. With the original tires, it kicked in often on certain roads particularly tar/cinder. Those tires were real floaters. I realized how bad they had been when I got the LTX's.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Your mileage May vary !

Funny thing, For a car - The least expensive (All Season) passenger car tires last the longest. Then when you start "upgrading" to performance based tires they don't last as liong. Oh they grip the road better but wear out faster.

Truck tires built for mud and snow with all those knobby things just vibrate away on the freeway. They don't seem to last all that long.

For a data point - I received 90k miles out of my OEM tires on an old Mercury Sable.

In case you didn't already know this... Tires are graded for treadwear life, traction, and temperture rating by the national Highway Traffic Safety administration. This is the so-called Uniform Tire Quality Grade Standards (or UTQG for short).

UTQG Treadwear Grades are based on actual road use in which the test tire is run in a vehicle convoy along with standardized Course Monitoring Tires. The vehicle repeatedly runs a prescribed 400-mile test loop in West Texas for a total of 7,200 miles. The vehicle can have its alignment set, air pressure checked and tires rotated every 800 miles. The test tire's and the Monitoring Tire's wear are measured during and at the conclusion of the test. The tire manufacturers then assign a Treadwear Grade based on the observed wear rates. The Course Monitoring Tire is assigned a grade and the test tire receives a grade indicating its relative treadwear. A grade of 100 would indicate that the tire tread would last as long as the test tire, 200 would indicate the tread would last twice as long, 300 would indicate three times as long, etc.
The problem with UTQG Treadwear Grades is that they are open to some interpretation on the part of the tire manufacturer because they are assigned after the tire has only experienced a little treadwear as it runs the 7,200 miles. This means that the tire manufacturers need to extrapolate their raw wear data when they are assigning Treadwear Grades, and that their grades can to some extent reflect how conservative or optimistic their marketing department is. Typically, comparing the Treadwear Grades of tire lines within a single brand is somewhat helpful, while attempting to compare the grades between different brands is not as helpful.

look at the bottom left side of the above picture to find the UTQG code on any tire. The treadwear portion is the first part of the code. In general the bigger the number the longer your tires will last.

- Your mileage may vary though.

 

[FinanceDude]

Did you rotate them regularly? (be honest). I rotate my tires every 6,000 miles and it has served me well........

 

[Rustic23]

The 63,000 miles on the pilot were only rotated once!

 

[FinanceDude]

The 63,000 miles on the pilot were only rotated once!

Are we talking F-16's or F-150s

 

[Rustic23]

Honda. I would rotate an F-16 many more times than once.

 

[rescueme]

I can't rotate the tires on my SRX. They are different sizes front/back ...

I understand that's not unusual in a lot of cases these days...

 

[Texas Proud]

I can't rotate the tires on my SRX. They are different sizes front/back ...

I understand that's not unusual in a lot of cases these days...

Not sure if they are side specific... but when I rotated on my Firebird, I just had them mounted on the other side (had to pay to take them off the rim and installed on the other side)....

I know some tires have an inside and an outside and can not be moved like this... so, got to pay to play

 

[Nodak]

I usually get about 38,000 miles on OEM tires but I drive a lot of gravel roads and they are definitely harder on tires than pavement is. I also will not buy the cheaper tires even though they will last a lot longer. The problem is they are made of harder cheaper rubber and work fine if you never drive on icy surfaces; on ice they can be dangerous.

 

[Texas Proud]

I usually get about 38,000 miles on OEM tires but I drive a lot of gravel roads and they are definitely harder on tires than pavement is. I also will not buy the cheaper tires even though they will last a lot longer. The problem is they are made of harder cheaper rubber and work fine if you never drive on icy surfaces; on ice they can be dangerous.

On water they can be dangerous....


Heck, on CONCRETE they can be dangerous as they usually do not stop you as quickly and do not handle as well...

 

[davemartin88]

Thanks to all for the information and experiences, miles really vary. Bought two new tires today so now have four new tires. Guy at the tire shop said the tread looked okay but thought that about 40k would have been the best I could hope for. He also said gravel could be a real tire killer and some of the other sources I checked say the same. Both of the failures were about 1/2" long tears in a groove in the tread, no foreign objects were found. As for rotating the tires, this was done 3 times, less than recommended but not never, lol.

Thanks again to everyone for the feedback.

 

[REWahoo]

Both of the failures were about 1/2" long tears in a groove in the tread, no foreign objects were found. As for rotating the tires, this was done 3 times, less than recommended but not never, lol.

You never said how old the tires were...?

I don't like going more than six years on a tire or failures just like the one you describe above can result.

 

[Nodak]

On water they can be dangerous....


Heck, on CONCRETE they can be dangerous as they usually do not stop you as quickly and do not handle as well...

Very true.

 

[ls99]

Thanks to all for the information and experiences, miles really vary. Bought two new tires today so now have four new tires. Guy at the tire shop said the tread looked okay but thought that about 40k would have been the best I could hope for. He also said gravel could be a real tire killer and some of the other sources I checked say the same. Both of the failures were about 1/2" long tears in a groove in the tread, no foreign objects were found. As for rotating the tires, this was done 3 times, less than recommended but not never, lol.

Thanks again to everyone for the feedback.

Sounds like result of chronic under-inflation.

 

[rescueme]

I know some tires have an inside and an outside and can not be moved like this... so, got to pay to play

Tires on my SRX and Mustang are directional (can't move side to side) so the Mustang tires were rotated (front to back) every three years - about 6K miles (normal use, for that car).

Due to the front/rear different tire size and direction of rotation, I don't even bother a "manual rotation". Anyway, once they are mounted, I don't want to break the bead by re-mounting the tire on a different wheel.

 

[Ronstar]

I have a 2009 F150 Supercrew with 27k and the tires look like the day I bought it. (except for the one i punctured when the truck was 4 months old). I should easily get 40k or even 50k on these tires. I think I've been on 2 gravel roads so tread wear is not a problem. I get the truck tires rotated every other oil change. My 2001 Corvette is another story. 34k on the Goodyear OEM run-flats in 5 years, and I'm ready for another set after 34k on the 2nd set (Goodyear non run-flats) in 5 years. No rotation possible any direction.