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
I change them when they start getting close to the wear bars, usually around when I notice a decrease of traction on wet roads. I know I could technically run them another 5k-ish miles and be fine, but I’m particular about tires. If I don’t wear them out in seven years, I would replace them. But so far that hasn’t happened yet, even though I now work from home.
Continental DWS 06+ are fantastic, by the way, if you want a good high-performance all season tire. Been using them for years, currently have a set on my Sportwagen and my fiancee’s Mazda3.
I second the DWS 06+. Ran a set on the stock wheels of my 2022 Camry Hybrid. Solid choice for an all season tire.
I’ve found the DWS 06 plus’s to be great all around tires, but they never last for me on anything. Had them on my A8 – first year was incredible, but by year 2, they were terrifying in the snow. Have a set on my S550 and the S is worn off on the rears after 8,000 miles – they don’t have a ton of wet traction anymore. My sister had these at my recommendation on her CTS and similar situation after 2 years.
Meanwhile, I have sets of cheap Pirelli P4’s on my old Impala and Aurora that were installed in 2017. Certainly not fun in the rain anymore but both sets still have 5-6/32’s. And they each have around 40k miles on them.
Nothing lasted like the original Goodyear Tripletreads when they came out in the early 00’s. Had a set on my Intrigue and that lasted 80k miles. And I DD’d that car all year round back then.
Bought a new gti, replaced the tires that day. Of course it came with summer rubber and i had a set of snows mounted in the garage waiting for it.
I have winters and all seasons for two cars. So eight tires get swapped twice a year. That works out to a new set about every two to three years. Per car it’s every four to five years. The camper gets new tires every five years. That’s three tires, two on the camper and a spare. I don’t trust camper tires more than five years.
Either when the tread hits the legal limit or the tires are 7 years old. I’ve had a belt let go in old tires on the highway. It nearly put me in the ditch. Never again.
I bought a new tire for the Si in Janurary thanks to a sudden pothole smack in the middle of the street. I’d only owned the car what three months at that point?
The Lx has had two sets of tires since I bought it in ’21, A set of Toyos on some Konig wheels, and a set of snows on steelies, the crap it came on I gave away to a friend for his, and I’m not kidding; Golf Cart.
Back in my sweet tuner days I was buying tires every 6 months, because I was drag racing, auto crossing, and driving with bad camber settings for t3h m4d gripz y0. These days I seem to be buying tires every two years or so for something. I don;t think I’ll need anything for a while, unless I get different wheels for the Si….
Time has never been an issue for me but living in a wet and rainy part of the country I tend to replace tires well before the tread depth chart recommends. If most of the tire is at 4/32″ I’ve probably waited a bit too long. It is not fun to hydroplane.
On the Continentals many people have mentioned the W goes away at 4/32″. I also live in a wet and rainy part of the country, so I replace at 4/32″ too.
I buy new ones when the garage tells me I need to.
Whenever they wear out, which varies from car to car. When tread depth is down to 3/32nds, I swap them out.
On my Subaru, I had a dedicated set of winter wheels/tires I swapped for the snowy seasons, but after selling that car and having a string of very mild almost snowless winters, I haven’t bothered with winter tires. I have a set of tire socks for my Mach-E if needed, but it handles the 1-2″ of snow we might see at a time just fine with the stock all-seasons and reasonable driving.
Let’s see, I have one car that I’ve had for 12 years and is on it’s third full set of tires. I have another car that I’ve had for 19 years and has had new tires a few times (I forget how many times, and not all at the same time), and I just bought a full new set of four for that one last month. So, I would guess every six years or so. I don’t like old tires and I change them out before they show signs of wear or dry rot. Continentals have been my preferred brand.
I’ve had to buy tires for nearly all my vehicles other than my dirt bike. I like to buy abandoned or near-abandoned vehicles, so most of them have old dry rotting tires on them when I get them. I also just do a lot of miles, so my motorcycles get new tires about once a year, and for cars when they need them. I usually wear out the dry rotted tires that come on the vehicles before I get new ones through some smokey means or run them as wheels on an offroad beater.
I buy them whenever I need them. I also keep cars for decades. So, my car has 240K miles, that translates to somewhere between 6-12 times in the 23 years I’ve had it. No, I haven’t kept track. Not OCD’ing on that.
When they wear or 5 years, whichever comes first.
My cars have five tires each. I generally replace all five when I get a car as I don’t want to be stuck with a decades-old spare when I need it. Typically the other four tires are decades-old as well when I buy a car anyway, given my car-shopping habits.
After that the replacement interval is case-by-case.
My daily eats tires, call it a combo of 400+ hp to the rear wheels, the poorly maintained metro Detroit roads, and worn front suspension components (now replaced!) these reasons combined with a staggered wheel setup means I’m never far from replacing either the front or rear tires.
Last time we bought tires was for the Q7. It had some really nice Michelin’s on it but they were kinda worn, probably could’ve gotten another 6mo out of them if it wasn’t for an an unrepairable flat, so it got four new Continental’s. You’re only allowed like a 1/16″ difference in tread depth so IDK what I would do right now if we got another flat. Do places even shave tires anymore?
I think Tire Rack still does.
When I was putting 15,000-20,000 mils a year on my custom microcar/”bicycle”, I’d go through a set of Schwalbe Marathons on the front every 5,000 miles, and a rear tire very 20,000+ miles.
Tires were the single most expensive component of its per-mile operating cost aside from building it, at about a penny per mile for the tires.
I have the trike re-assembled, without a body on it, and now have DOT-rated 16×2.25″ solar car tires on it with over 5,000 miles on them(similar in diameter to 20″ bicycle tires), used when the trike was last assembled as a velomobile. They show no signs of wear. No idea how long they’ll last, but I suspect it will be a lot cheaper in the long run to use them, and they’re also rated for the speeds this vehicle actually used at(45+ mph on state highways, and the tires are rated for 62 mph). They have thick rubber on them suitable for high-speed braking and are low enough in rolling resistance that the trike remains easy to pedal with a disabled motor.
The Milan SL goes through a front set of Continental Contact Urban 20″ every 10,000 miles, and the rear Schwalbe Marathon Greenguard 26″ lasts similarly.
My electric mountainbike has over 5,000 miles on it since I built it and the set of Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tour 26×2.25″ that I installed show zero signs of wear at all.
I have Schwalbe Marathon Plus tourers on one of my AT bikes. I like them but I use that bike mostly for short trips. I’ve heard complaints though they are stiff enough to be kinda energy hungry and Bicyclerollingresistance.com (yes that is a real website for you non cyclists out there) backs that up.
https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/tour-reviews
I wonder if there might not be an even better tire for your needs.
I reference that website regularly before making tire purchases.
For the mountainbike, efficiency isn’t a concern. Its range is already crap and its aerodynamics are always going to be far worse than its rolling resistance even after I make a faring for it. On the same 1.5 kWh battery that used to get the microcar/”bicycle” a 150-200 mile rang at 30-35 mph, this bike gets 1/3-1/4 that range at 25-30 mph. The Marathon Plus Tour are even less efficient than the regular Marathon Plus, which in turn are less efficient than the base Marathon Greenguard. The roads where I live suck. They have potholes 6″+ deep, are littered with debris from wrecked cars and liquor bottles, and having to change a tire in some neighborhoods can be very dangerous since I’m the wrong skin color.
Many of the places I ride look like this:
https://i.imgur.com/LcbR1JN.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0uyALPF.jpg
I once had to change a tube on the Milan and got surrounded by a pack of feral dogs. They were not friendly. The first one that decided to attack got this to the face and was instantly killed:
https://i.imgur.com/2V8ayMa.jpg
The rest decided to F right off down F-off lane once they realized thy didn’t want any. Things would get much more complicated if humans were involved. I’ve been chased by groups of urban youth before and even been shot at, but fortunately I never had to physically engage.
Iron-clad tires help me avoid such situations in the first place, even if by a marginal amount. Every bit helps.
Safety >> efficiency. Fair enough.
To a point. It’s a balancing act.
Modern cars already went full retard in the 2010s on safety to the point that they are entirely disposable things in any minor collision, and the statistical reductions in death/injury rates are only marginal from the 1990s.
The pinnacle of that safety being the 2015 Nissan Altima:
https://www.carscoops.com/2021/11/nissan-altima-driver-somehow-survives-being-crushed-by-semi-truck/
No doubt it’s amazing safety as a direct result of it’s being blessed with the smooth, bulletproof and ultra efficient Jatco Xtronic CVT.
Sigh. If only Jatco made bicycle tires…
For snow tires it becomes obvious, summer tires not so much. I think I mostly age out tires instead of wear them out sadly.
Mine always age out vs. wear out, so 7 years.
I have my third set of goodyear duratec on my JKU. I am at 170K and it is 13 years old and have had 5 sets of tires on it since new. When the tread gets low enough to cause problems then I get a new set.
When I need new tires.
Since we swap the DD’s back and forth between winters and non-winter tires, that really prolongs them. The other set of tires then sits in the basement where it stays around 70 degrees and isn’t overly dry, so they really only need to be replaced due to wear, rather than age.
As infrequently as possible. I drive slow and buy the best tires I can find designed for low NVH and high fuel efficiency over stickiness. I also keep my car garaged. My tires last till they rot. That’s typically at least 7 years unless a pothole or road debris takes them out first.
When I was running Pirellis – I found that I was changing the rears every 2 years, and the fronts every three.
Since I’ve switched over to Vredesteins – Every three years all around.
I had to replace all the OEM tires on my Pacifica Hybrid by 3 years after I bought it. When I briefly had a Volt, I also replaced all the tires because it badly needed an alignment and the tires were accordingly crap. Other than that, just when they get damaged irreparably.
I find that when I need to change them is when I change them…
I have a beater in my driveway, a 2001 Passat wagon that was pretty damned nice in its heyday (for a VW, that means the first 3.5 years).
I do as little as possible to maintain it, since the car is driven about 20 times a year for a total of about 1,000 miles. Oil hasn’t been changed since 2017 (it burns enough and gets topped off so much, it’s almost pointless).
So a couple of years ago, I noticed my 2015-era Pirellis were looking pretty rough with dry rot, even though they still had about 20-30% tread remaining. So I bit the bullet on Thursday and ordered a new set just for the peace of mind — whether I try to sell or donate it eventually, there’s no way I could do that with those tires on it. And because I’m dumping money into it now, I’m going to try a few other minor rehab efforts to make it decent again.
So…”once ever 10 years?” is my answer. Side note, but the spare tire is original and looks amazing. I guess keeping it out of UV rays and putting no wear & tear on it makes a big difference. Surprise, surprise!