Had to have the tyres on my 2006/56 Avensis replaced at 20k miles recently. Curious to know if this is typical wear or not (both the servicing dealer and tyre dealer thought 20k was well on the good side of normal).
The reason I question this is that I got almost 30k out of a set of Michelins on my previous Mondeo - but that was a gutless 1.8 petrol, whereas the Avensis is the 2.2 D4D 150, so clearly its OE Bridgestones had substantially more power to handle.
My second reason for concern is that the car has been in two front-end accidents - side swiped from both wings on separate occasions at low speed.
The fronts were down to around 1.6/3/1.6 and 1.5/3/0 (yikes), but they have never been run under-inflated by more than 1-2 psi, so hopefully this wear pattern is normal, although the excessive wear on the outer right side of the drivers side tyre is a worry - there was not much tread on the outer 1cm or so of the tread pattern.
The way it is driven is clearly important info - daily commute of 30 miles each way, 22 of which are motorway. No tyre squealing antics (it isn't that sort of car!), but the odd strong prod of the right pedal thru 2nd/3rd/4th when everything is pointing in the same direction.
So, what's the consensus on 20k tyre life for this sort of car in this sort of motorway-biased use - good/bad/indifferent?
Edited by bristolmotorspeedway {P} on 20/10/2007 at 17:38
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You'll might find the treadwear rating on the Bridgestone's is very low - I had Turanza ER30's on my car from new and their TWR was 140, the lowest I've ever had. And it's thought that manufacturers tend to exagerate their tyre's TWR numbers to make them look longer lasting.
My car is RWD but very gently driven and only used on long motorway runs and I struggled to get to 20K on the Bridgestone rears (and they probably ought to have been changed some way before that). I've since done 10K on Michelin Primacy HP's and they look almost unworn.
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I have not been impressed with Jap tyres such as Bridgestone and Yokohama. I have done 10K on a set of Yokohama decibels and they are down from 7mm to 4mm already.
Try Michelin next - IME the tend to be longer wearing tyres especially the Energy make although ypu prefer the pilots with the power and torque of your avensis. The Yokohama's are also useless in the wet and tramline badly.
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I agree that Michelins are the business. Get them at Costco. Worth the annual membership fee for that alone. And if you need glasses or contacts you're quids in. A member of staff there told me they run the optical and tyre services at a loss and use part of the membership to offset this. They make their money from other parts of the store. Soryy to be a wee bit off topic!
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Continuing the swerve off topic, Costco is also brilliant for Wonder Wheels (Gallon pack) and industrial size vegetable oil for tax avoidance.
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The motoring magazines run extensive tyre tests from time to time. The differences between the brands are minimal; the technical terms are beyond me; and the winner is usually some brand I've never heard of, and which almost certainly your local fitter won't have in stock.
All I've ever understood about brands of tyres is that Michelins seem to last longer than others, and that's all I've ever needed to know about them in 40 years of driving.
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I thought it was amazing to see tyres with a 75,000 mile wear guarantee for sale in WalMart in the US. Practically everything seemed to be at least 50,000 miles. They must use a rock hard tread compound - Goodness knows what they'd be like in the wet.
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Thanks for all the opinions - relieved (sort of) to hear this is reasonably normal from Bridgestones (mine are Turanza E30s or E300s btw).
To all those who recommended Michelins - my thoughts exactly, having run them extensively on a BX, a Carina and latterly the Mondeo. In every case the car drove better and the tyres lasted much longer than other brands. The BX was ruined when on cheapo tyres (never again) and felt like a new car when put back on Michelins; the Carina ate its front Goodyears in an astonishing 12000, mainly urban, miles; the Mondeo rode badly and was very noisy when on Goodyears, although they wore reasonably well, yet again replacement Michelins made it feel years newer.
Now the irony - when replacing the tyres on the Avensis, the fitter offered Bridgestones initially, but I asked for Michelins, and hurrah, they had them in stock. Unfortunately, after fitting the tyres he asked 'it was the Bridgestones you wanted yeah?', err, 'no'. They offered to swap them, but I was already running very late so opted to take the Bridgestones at a c£20 saving over the Michelins. Of course, I regret this now, especially after everyone else recommends the latter! :-)
May get the tyres rotated and move the part-worn rears to the front. That should see them off and enable me to get Michelins on the front within 10-15k miles. Otherwise, it's only 20k miles anyway until these now-new fronts will be shot anyway!
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in the US....They must use a rock hard tread compound
Experience of a Buick (can't remember which, but a 3.8 V6) in Louisiana a few years ago backed this up. It was incredibly easy to get the tyres squealing and the car sliding at 35-50 mph on Interstate slip-roads, these were the sort of 'corners' that a Euro repmobile would mop up at 60-70mph without even a murmur or tremor. It was a real eye-opener to find this kind of behaviour at such slow speeds when taking it easy.
I guess some of the answer to the rain question is that they have winter tyres too. Compared with the above, I have driven the 3.8 V6 Pontiac Grand Prix for 2000km in the Canadian Rockies during winter. I believe this car shares the floorpan of the above mentioned Buick, so they are not too different. This Pontiac was superb in conditions ranging from -25 in the dry, to mixed grit and ice, to fresh snow falling over compacted ice. With the help of traction control and a wary eye on the prevailing road conditions it gave the driver plenty of confidence. No doubt the winter spec tyres were the reason this was possible in a 200bhp FWD car. Shame the driver's side windscreen wiper rubber broke off really (cheers GM!), luckily within 20km of an Avis branch (you can have this one back and I'll take another please!!).
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I guess some of the answer to the rain question is that they have winter tyres too.
Actually, IIRC the tyres I saw were generally All Season tyres - which I presume are somewhere between the Summer tyres that we use and Winter tyres. I found this flyer and the All Seasons go up to 60K miles and others higher than I saw, up to 80K.
i.walmart.com/i/if/hmp/fusion/06_Q3_TireFlyer.pdf
Interesting to see on that flyer that they'll do what amounts to a service on a modern car, with fully synth oil for $40!!
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