Tires are a critical component of your vehicle. They form the interface between the car and the road, and are entirely responsible for how well you accelerate, stop, and turn. Given their vital role, you’d think every driver out there would pay the utmost attention to maintaining them, but that’s not quite the case. So I ask—how often do you change your tires?
I’m kind of bad, myself. I almost never change my tires. Now, I’m no reckless fool. I’m not out here driving around on puckered 20-year-old tires that are flaking out with dry rot. I just rarely need to change them, due to my lifestyle.
See, I’m a car enthusiast. I tend to buy and sell cars fairly regularly. If I’m looking at something and it’s got bald tires, or the date codes are ancient, it’s a tell that the car has been mistreated in other ways too. I only buy cars with decent tires with decent tread. Normally, when I get a car, I drive it for a couple of years and then sell it before the tires ever need to be replaced.
This hasn’t always been the case. When I bought a Miata to use as a track car, I was swapping tires all the time. That’s because I decided to run cheap no-brand rubber on the street, and glorious Nankang AR-1s on the track. The latter were beautiful—semi-slicks with grip for days. Only, with a treadwear of 80, they’d have worn out pretty quickly on the street. Thus, I was swapping them on and off every few weeks.
I did once buy a set of retreads for $200, because I refused to spend more on tires for a car I got for free. Beyond that, the only time in my life that I’ve bought new tires was back in 2016. I was driving a Daihatsu Feroza from Adelaide to Melbourne in the rain, when I realized I had no steering control over 50 mph. The car was aquaplaning thanks to a total lack of tread. I spent $600 on a set of light truck tires and an alignment, and it handled great. Right up until I blew the engine two months later. Regrets.
The fact is, tires are expensive—and your car has four of them! I can’t imagine owning a big truck or SUV with 20-inch rims or big mudders. You can end up spending four figures on tires alone—more than I’ve spent on some of my cars!
While I seldom swap out my tires, I still stay safe. I like to ensure I’m running on tires less than five years old, and with tread well above the wear bars. I just avoid buying new tires by selling my cars before they ever wear out a set of rubber. It’s not hard if you’re swapping cars more often than you’re filing your taxes.
You’ve heard my story, and how I’ve only bought tires twice in ten years. But this is Autopian Asks, and I want to hear your story. Are you changing your tires every winter and summer, and buying new rubber every five years? Or are you grinding Goodyears into dust because you live outside the Snow Belt? Sound off below, and for the love of cars—stay safe out there.
Image credits: Lewin Day
My neighbor’s ’73 C15 Truck: needed replacing before last month. He lost control in rain on interstate several weeks back and spun into center barrier. Truck totaled. Tires had to be at least 20 yo. But they still had tread, but had to be hard as a rock.
When they wear out?
I swap the winter tires on every fall and off every spring. I am in Ontario, so winter tires aren’t mandated but they do get you a discount on insurance. Quebec mandates winter tires.
Other than that, I absolutely swap tires when they get down to the recommended replacement level. Tires are your most important safety feature.
This past summer I finally replaced the tires on the ’71 Continental Mark III my uncle passed down to me. They looked brand new and had maybe 4,000 miles on them (based on the transmission rebuild receipt in the glovebox from 1990 where it showed the car had 50,000 miles and it now has 55,000ish miles.) But the tires were so old they had the 3 digit date code: 508 with a triangle, so they were from 1998.
If you change cars frequently enough, you never have to worry about buying tires separately.
Three times on my mom’s 1998 Olds 88 with 82k miles, all because of dry rot. Way too many on my 1985 Mustang LX 5.0 when I was in college, because I was a happy idiot. I would guess at least eight times on my 1999 Tahoe 2 door with 315k miles. And I understand that re-shoeing my i3 every 20k miles ain’t gonna be cheap. Oh yeah, pretty sure I have put new tires on my wife’s and kid’s cars as well. (I tend to hold onto cars for a while)
One of the first things I do when I buy a used vehicle is buy new tires, often within days. I live in an area that gets rain much of the year, but not much snow. Therefor the most important attribute to me is wet traction. That means that for my non-trucks I run Ultra High Performance All Season tires.
Interestingly that just caused an issue with the idiot behind the counter at Costco. The C-Max we have that my MIL drives needed new tires. So I ordered up some Pilot Sport AS 4 for it. Once I got the email I told my wife to get with her mother and schedule the install. On the day of I get a call at work from my wife. She proceeds to tell me that her mother had just called and said that Costco wasn’t going to install the tires since they are “wrong for the car since they are high performance tires”. After letting my wife vent, I told her to tell them take a look at car and see that it currently has the AS 3+ on it already that they had installed. Apparently my wife called her mother back and told her to tell the guy behind the counter to “put the fucking tires on the car” which she did and they complied.
But yeah with the number of vehicles and the use of UHPAS tires means that I tend to buy at least one set of tires per year and sometimes two.
I got Continental DWS high performance all seasons, so I assume when the D patch is no longer a D, I will get new ones. I’ve never driven a tire set to bald, Dad would never let me get away with it.
You change your tires when you need, often isn’t the parameter here.
Living in CA where it never snows and hardly rains, I don’t replace them until they are slicks. We get zero rain from May to September, so running slicks all summer is not a problem. When I do replace them, it’s American made only. The Odyssey has some Continental LX25’s on it. Great tire. Yes a European brand, but made in USA. I truly dread when the ioniq 5 needs new tires. 4 20″ tires is going to be expensive.