Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Homerr

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I have some Toyo 'Open Country' tires on my Ford Ranger (thank you Ford for getting them replaced due to the Firestone problem). <br />These tires have a 500 mileage rating.<br /><br />I understand that a rating of 150 will last longer than a 100 etc... but it doesn't explain approx. how many miles they will run. <br /><br />How long could a person expect a 500 rating will last in mileage? How long does a typical light truck tire last?<br /><br />I had my Ranger tire fixed today, and noticed they are wore down quite a bit. They have approx. 26k miles on them.<br /><br />I'm had a bit of a war with this local tire shop a while back:<br />I had an issue with our mini-van. They replaced the tires because they were worn out way before their warranty and told us they would not replace them again if it happens a second time.<br /> <br />They tried to feed me a line of garbage saying because "I live on a dirt road" the tires wore way before their time? Excuse me? I live approx. 1/4 mile down a dirt road before pavement! What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? It's a min-van! Maybe if I power-braked it on the dirt road it would wear them out!<br /><br />And NO, there are no problems with the van's tie rods etc...<br /><br />Anyhow...if it does happen again, they WILL replace them because it is under warranty whether they like it or not. They have to honor it. They have a mileage guarantee.<br /><br />I'm keeping an eye on my Ranger's tires because of our van's tires. I'm just wondering if I'm getting ripped or just over-reacting?<br /><br />H.
 

JB

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Ahoy, Homerr.<br /><br />Different vehicles, roads and drivers wear tires at different rates. The wear ratings on tires are relative.<br /><br />My 4X4 Rangers needed tires replaced at around 35-40K, but my son's 4X4 Ranger only got 23-24K per set. We both used Firestones.<br /><br />We again have identical vehicles, ML320s this time. He gets 30K, I get 45K.<br /><br />Go figure. I live 1/2 mile up a dirt road and do 90% of my driving on rural and Interstate highways. He lives in the city and does most driving there.<br /><br />Based on that I would say your Toyos are behaving normally.<br /><br />Good luck. :)
 

Homerr

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Thanks JB...That's what I'm thinking too. <br /><br />I realize different cars and tires wear differently as well as driving habits.<br />I do 90% of my driving on pavement as well.<br /><br />I would like hear how other people's opinions and recommendations on their tires. There are so many tires to choose from today. It gets confusing on what to buy that will last.<br /><br />I doubt I will buy from this tire shop again simply because of what they have done to our van. (more to the story)<br /><br />Thanks,<br /><br />H.
 

one more cast

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

My future stepson only gets about 12 weeks on a set (4) of tires. He smokes them and then complains because they wear out so fast.His truck looks like it was in a war,and lost. I have 28000 miles on my tires and they have 50% tread left and I drive on dirt roads alot. Way back when I was in auto tech class we were told that a tread wear rating of 100 was average (100%) and 200 would last twice as long etc.
 

NOSLEEP

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Homerr.. Toyo "open country" are an excellent <br />mud and offroad tire. I excpect to get at least<br />80,000km off of mine, on my 3/4 ton. Many <br />oilfield operators use these tires for lease work<br />in the oilfields around here and they will take <br />lots of abuse, and self clean well.
 

Homerr

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

There's no way I will get 80K out of these tires.<br />That's why I'm wanting to know the approx. mileage of the tire.<br /><br />I looked at my paperwork, and it says nothing about mileage warantee, only that it has a 500 rating.<br /><br />Thanks again,<br /><br />H.
 

Scoop

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

I have had mixed mileage on a bunch of different tires. I drive a lot of miles (40K+ per year). I had a set of Uniroyal Tiger Paws that lasted 78,000 miles as my best. The traction was not great but the wear was. I had a set of Goodyear eagles last about 30k as my worst.<br /><br />The things that affect my wear the most is proper inflation, good alignment and the wear on the suspension.
 

Jack Shellac

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Just by coincidence, I was talking with a tire dealer today that I've done business with for over 30 years and who has become a friend. He said they carried Toyo tires for about a year and had to drop them because they had so many problems. I don't believe the wear ratings have any correlation to how many miles you should get; it's just the manufacturers rating in relation to their own other tires. For myself, Michelins have been the longest wearing tires I've ever owned and have good traction, too. I usually get at least 80,000 miles per set. Too bad they're French owned--they're good tires.
 

Scoop

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Jack, I have a set of Michelin's now. I have the x-1s on my car, they seem to be nice, have good traction and are wearing well. The tire dealer tried to push me into Bridgestones and almost the same price with half the treadwear warranty.
 

sony2001

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

It's taken a long time but I know tires. The higher the tread wear rating, the harder the rubber, the longer it takes to stop. NOSLEEP got 80,000 kilometers out of his tires which is 48,000 miles. The harder the rubber the longer they last. Tread pattern is a lot less important than people think it is. Now to make two bold statements. There are no bad tires. And the best tires are the cheapest tires. :cool:
 

Homerr

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Thanks for the input guys...<br /><br />We'll see how these tires ride out.<br /><br />It's just strange that I have 2 sets of tires (different brands) from the same tire shop, and one wears out way before their time, and the other is questionable...<br /><br />Time will tell!<br /><br />H.
 

sony2001

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Question: You have a current van for the wife and kids. Somehow two tires are near bald and two are good. Down to the shop you go to get two new ones of the same make and model. Which end of the car do you put them on? :cool:
 

bubbakat

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Sony to answer your question always put the new tires on the front. You always want your best rubber on the steering axel<br /><br /> Homer your delima could come from the fact that the rubber compound wasn't mixed exactly to spec (ie pulled from mold to quick because of shift change, to much carbon compound put in because some lazy dufus is mad at company,) This kind of stuff will make a tire wear oddly but if you have a mileage warranty the shop has to honor it but they always pro rate it so you loose quite a bit after the first 2/32 nd is wore off so that is how marketing is done . Know this from experience from selling tires of all sizes.
 

sony2001

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Especially on front wheel drive you put the best tires on the rear. In any high speed manouver the rear looses traction first and the rear tends to swing around to the front and leads you to the accident. With equal traction, front versus rear, the vehicle will drift in a loss of control situation. Drifting is more controlable. :cool: <br />P.S. Bubba the car works great with the replacement alternator. Thanks.
 

SlowlySinking

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Homerr, as I remember, in the early days of tire ratings the mileage rating number was based on the first two digits representing the number of thousands of miles the tire should last under optimum conditions, so a 500 rated tire was a 50,000 mile tire, but, now the numbers can only be used for a relative comparision. :)
 

Homerr

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Thanks for all the help guys...<br /><br />I'm going to get a few other tire shop's evaluation of the tires before I go back and gripe to the shop I originally purchased them from.<br /><br />That would be my guess too: 500 rating = 50K miles. But heck...How often does a truck tire last 50K ? It would have to be one hard tire and rough ride?<br /><br />H.
 

Ralph 123

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

sony2001 "There are no bad tires?" Well, I wouldn't put a pair of Firestones on any of my vehicles. Not after all the accidents cuase by tred separation and the safety recall.... My experience is that the quality of the tire greatly affects the ride and performance of the vehicle. Consumer Reports rates tires. You can go to their web site and see the differences.
 

NOSLEEP

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Mr spencer.. there is nothing wrong with<br />firestone tires, and there never has been.The<br />problem lies on the shoulders of the people that<br />let them run under inflated .The media band wagon<br />started the firestone fiasco. Jack Nassar of Ford<br />Motor Company, Lost his job over the way he <br />handled this problem. It cost Ford billions of<br />dollars. And some wingnuts said the problems were<br />caused by the Ford Explorer,..Give me a break.<br />The problems were caused by under inflated tires<br />on hot surfaces. We never saw one!!! tire related<br />problem here in Canada. All those tires replaced<br />what a joke.
 

Ralph 123

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

NOSLEEP - no offense, but the independent engineering analysis says otherwise:<br /><br />ODI conducted a non-destructive analysis of numerous randomly collected focus tires and peer tires from southern states, where most of the failures have occurred, using shearography, which can detect separations inside a tire. This shearography analysis demonstrated that the patterns and levels of cracks and separations between the belts were far more severe in the focus tires than in peer tires. Many of the focus tires that were examined were in the later stages of failure progression prior to complete separation of the upper belt. The shearography results for tires manufactured at Wilson were similar to those manufactured at Joliette.<br /><br />A critical design feature used by tire manufacturers to suppress the initiation and growth of belt-edge cracks is the "belt wedge," a strip of rubber located between the two belts near the belt edges on each side of the tire. The belt wedge thickness, or gauge, in the ATX tires and the Wilderness AT tires produced prior to May 1998 is generally narrower than the wedge gauge in peer tires, and the wedge gauge in cured tires was often less than Firestone's target for this dimension. The tires with this wedge did not adequately resist the initiation and propagation of belt-edge cracks between the steel belts. During March and April 1998, Firestone changed the material composition and increased the gauge of the wedge in its Wilderness AT tires (and some other tire models).<br /><br />Another important feature of radial tires related to the prevention of belt-leaving-belt separations is the gauge of the rubber between the two steel belts, or "inter-belt gauge." The inter-belt gauge initially specified by Firestone for the focus tires is generally narrower than the inter-belt gauges in peer tires and is narrower than Firestone's original specification for the ATX tires in the early 1990s. Moreover, the actual measured gauge under the tread grooves in several of the focus tires measured by ODI was far less than Firestone's minimum design specification. Since an inadequate inter-belt gauge reduces the tire's resistance to crack growth and its belt adhesion capabilities, this narrow inter-belt gauge may be partially responsible for the relatively low peel adhesion properties of the focus tires compared to peer tires. In August 1999, after becoming concerned about the adequacy of the inter-belt gauge in the cured Wilderness AT tires, especially in the regions directly under the tread grooves, Firestone changed the inter-belt gauge specification back to the original dimension. <br /><br />Another relevant feature is the design of the shoulder pocket of the focus tires, which can cause higher stresses at the belt edge and lead to a narrowing, or "pinching," of the wedge gauge at the pocket. The focus tires exhibit a series of weak spots around the tire's circumference, leading to the initiation and growth of cracks earlier than in competitor tires and in other Firestone tires produced for light trucks and SUVs. In addition, many of the focus tires exhibited shoulder pocket cracking similar to that which Firestone identified as a significant contributor to the risk of tread detachment in the recalled ATX tires.....<br /><br />Under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, in order to compel a manufacturer to conduct a recall, NHTSA has the burden of proving that a safety-related defect exists in the manufacturer's products. The record of this investigation supports a determination that a safety-related defect exists in the focus tires manufactured by Firestone prior to its 1998 modifications to the belt wedge that are installed on SUVs. Although the agency has concerns about the possibility of future tread separations in focus tires manufactured after the wedge change, the available evidence at this time does not clearly demonstrate that a safety-related defect exists in those focus tires. NHTSA will, however, continue to closely monitor the performance of these tires.<br /><br />Therefore, on the basis of the information developed during the ODI investigation, NHTSA has made an initial decision that a safety-related defect exists in Firestone Wilderness AT P235/75R15 and P255/70R16 tires manufactured to the Ford specifications prior to May 1998 that are installed on SUVs. These tires were manufactured primarily at Wilson and Joliette and, to a lesser extent, at Oklahoma City. The initial decision does not apply to the P255/70R16 tires produced at Decatur or any of the Wilderness AT tires produced at Aiken, since these tires were all manufactured after May 1998.<br /><br />You can read the whole engineering report at:<br /><br /> http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/hot/firestone/firestonesummary.html <br /><br />As soon as the media picked up on the problem I checked a friend's Mercury Mountaineer and found the treads about to fall off - The dealership rushed it in that very day after they took one look at them. The cracks were visible at a glance. And, I am talking about Boston not Arizona or Nevada....<br /><br />I for one would never buy a Firestone/Bridgestone tire after that. JMHO
 

SpinnerBait_Nut

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Re: Tire guru please! Questions on tire mileage

Don't know fellows, but I have owned a lot of Firestones and I have a set on one of my vans now, and have never had a moments problem out of none of them.<br />(Insert knocking on wood here.)(Loud knocking sound)
 
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