Tyre wear after 10,000 miles?

[Mini Mish]

I have just had my first service (10,000 after 18 months) and was astounded to learn that I needed two new front tyres as they were worn right down. After only doing 10,000 miles I was very surprised but the dealership said this is quite normal. Has anyone else experienced this problem? It also needs a new steering column - again, anyone else? I consider myself quite a careful driver (honest!) so am at a bit of a loss!

Any comments appreciated

p.s. what a great site!

[supa-dupa-cooper]

Welcome to MINI2

My MINI is 22 months old and on 17k miles, I dont need new tyres yet

[Tigger, Eeyore & Roo]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mini Mish (original)

I have just had my first service (10,000 after 18 months) and was astounded to learn that I needed two new front tyres as they were worn right down. After only doing 10,000 miles I was very surprised but the dealership said this is quite normal. Has anyone else experienced this problem? It also needs a new steering column - again, anyone else? I consider myself quite a careful driver (honest!) so am at a bit of a loss!

Any comments appreciated

p.s. what a great site!

I have no idea how powerful your MINI is, what your driving style is like and what tyres you are running but, by way of comparison the original equipment run flats on the front of my own Cooper S would have lastest for about 17-18,000 miles if they hadn't been rotated front to rear at 14,500 miles.

[ratherbewindsurfing]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mini Mish (original)

I have just had my first service (10,000 after 18 months) and was astounded to learn that I needed two new front tyres as they were worn right down. After only doing 10,000 miles I was very surprised but the dealership said this is quite normal. Has anyone else experienced this problem? It also needs a new steering column - again, anyone else? I consider myself quite a careful driver (honest!) so am at a bit of a loss!

Any comments appreciated

p.s. what a great site!

You have my sympathy, 10,000 miles is really not very good, you are obviously a very careful driver, with a bit more effort you could easly wear out a pair of front tyres in 6000 miles.

The technique I find work best is to wheelspin at every oppurtunity. If you want to get below 6000 miles from your tyres trackdays are excellent, if you try hard you will get less than 1000 mile for them.

Remember cars are for thrashing and crashing

Good luck with your new set of tyres, hope you do better next time.

[nylo]

10,000 doesn't really surprise me. Don't think I've got much more out of my 205 40 18" Pirelli runflats. Only thing I can suggest is if you've got a bit of tread left, swap the back two to the front. At least it'll stop you having to shell out for a while yet

[Bilbo Baggins]

Mini Mish, You did not mention which tyres and wheels you have and that can change the answers. The stock tyres on any car with run-flats has a wear rating of approximately 280. This is a low treadwear number. A conventional sedan will have tyres with numbers in the 400 - 600 range and expect to get 40,000 - 60,000 miles sometimes higher depending upon the brand of tyre.

The reason that MINI chooses tyres with such a low treadwear number is because they want more performance oriented characteristics. The trade off for higher performance is lower tread life.

To maximize treadlife you need to monitor aip pressures on a monthly basis and rotate, in spite of BMW/MINI recomendations to the contrary, your tyres on a regular basis. I rotate mine every 3,000 - 5,000 miles. But, even with pressure monitoring and rotation I have only been able to squeeze out 24,000 miles from my first MCS and 22,000 miles from my current MCS's stock tyres. I had the 195/55-16 Dunlop run-flats.

I am now running BF Goodrich Traction T/AV 205/50-16 with a tread wear rating of 360 and we will see how long they last.

[minicabrio]

I used to get 8k miles out of my fronts - but that's because of how i drove it

[jords]

Is there any actual benefit from rotating tyres? As far as I see it, this only delays the replacement of the front tyres, so instead of replacing the front two, you have to replace all four at the same time. On top of this, you also have 4 tyres with minimal tread instead of always having two tyres with a decent amount of tread on them.

Personally, I have never bothered with the rotating of tyres, but I would like to know peoples opinions/reasons for doing this.

[Tigger, Eeyore & Roo]

Quote: Originally Posted by jords (original)

Is there any actual benefit from rotating tyres? As far as I see it, this only delays the replacement of the front tyres, so instead of replacing the front two, you have to replace all four at the same time. On top of this, you also have 4 tyres with minimal tread instead of always having two tyres with a decent amount of tread on them.

Personally, I have never bothered with the rotating of tyres, but I would like to know peoples opinions/reasons for doing this.

I rotated mine simply because I want all of the runflats to wear out at the same time so that they can be changed for a matching set of something else; otherwise I would not recommend that anyone does this.

It's always best to wear out the front tyres and then, when new rubber goes on, it should always be placed on the rear of the car and the "old stock" then moved to the front. This way the best tyres are always on the back (where they should be on a FWD car) and no tyres are ever left to simply become dangerous and vulnerable to punctures long before the tread is properly worn out.

Tigger.