Fun with Tires

[JoshInBham]

Hello everyone. I am a new owner and a fairly new member and wanted to share my experience from the last week .

I purchased a 2014 S85 with 17k on it last Thursday evening from a dealer in Gainesville, GA. I live in Birmingham, AL and drove home after the purchase which was late in the evening.

The next morning a friend comes by to take me to drop off my old car for some service before I put it up for sale and notices that there is a bubble in the rear divers side tire.

I decide to go by the tire place that I have used on the last few cars that I have had good luck with. They tell me the Primacy has been discontinued and they have no stock of them. They will order the closest which is Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3. Even though there is a good bit of tread left, I always replace in two's, so both rear tires will get new rubber.

I schedule to come in right at opening on Monday, as they get crazy busy, and I have an appointment to get to in Atlanta which is 2 1/2 hours away.

First issue I would remind anyone going to a non-Tesla shop it to tell them where to jack the car. I just went outside to stretch my legs and these guys were about to jack the car up by the suspension! I told them there are very visible jack points and where they were.

They get finished and I hit the road. I noticed a drifting/wondering feeling, but I just didn't have time to turn around at this point. I deal with it and drive to my appointment thinking maybe they need to wear in a bit.

No dice.

I finish my appointment and I am within 2 miles of the Tesla dealer near Marietta. I go by there and they confirm the same darty vagueness, and put it on the rack. They check the alignment, which was out a bit, and that was the best they could do.

Their suggestions is what I figured, I need to make sure I had the same tires front to back. The did have some Primacy's in stock, but I didn't want to get in this same fiasco again, so I went to Discount tire and had two more Pilot Sport A/S 3's put on the front.

Car is back to handling as close to what I can remember from before. I do wonder if I am going to loose some mileage being a sport tire?

Lesson learned?
-Front and back tires must be the same brand and model
-Watch out for service companies not familiar with Tesla

 

[Chopr147]

Thanks for the post.
One more special thing these Tesla's need.
One tire goes bad and I feel like I may need to replace all 4 to keep it riding the same

 

[JoshInBham]

Thanks for the post.
One more special thing these Tesla's need.
One tire goes bad and I feel like I may need to replace all 4 to keep it riding the same

I think you can definitely get by with two, provided they are the same brand and model.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

The Michelin Primacy MXM4 is not discontinued. Michelin lists it as one of their latest generation Grand Touring All-Season tires, and TireRack.com has it in stock.

The Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ is a great tire, but it is not a grand touring tire. It is an ultra high-performance all-season. It will have more noise and a rougher ride than the Primacys, but it will have better dry and wet traction and handling.

The Pilot Sport A/S 3+ is also not a low rolling resistance tire, so expect your energy use to go up 10-15%.

An equivalent choice to the Primacy is the newer Tesla OEM tire, the GoodYear Eagle Touring tire, made specifically for Tesla. This tire is a grand touring tire and has the sound-reduction foam in it. TireRack.com has these in stock, and they're slightly less expensive than the Primacys.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tire...toYear=2015&autoModel=Model S&autoModClar=85D

 

[JoshInBham]

The Michelin Primacy MXM4 is not discontinued. Michelin lists it as one of their latest generation Grand Touring All-Season tires, and TireRack.com has it in stock.

Both Tire Engineers and Discount Tire told me that the Primacy in 245/45-R19 is being discontinued. I guess I need to do more research. I hope it doesn't zap my range 10-15%!!

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Both Tire Engineers and Discount Tire told me that the Primacy in 245/45-R19 is being discontinued. I guess I need to do more research. I hope it doesn't zap my range 10-15%!!

If it is or is planned to be discontinued, I'm sure Michelin is replacing it with an upgraded tire in the same category with similar specs.

Rotate your Pilot Sport A/S 3+ tires in a rearward-cross pattern. Do the first rotation early, at 2500 miles. Then do subsequent rotations every 5000 miles. If you do this over the life of the tires, you will keep the road noise to a minimum. Telsa (and other tire shops) may tell you that since the tread is wearing evenly that a rotation is not required, but if you do that, they will get really noisy in the 2nd half of their life. This is a general rule for almost all tires, not just your PS AS 3+.

 

[Chopr147]

Anything can happen but I hope to give Tesla the car back with 45,000 miles and original tires in 3 years.
Then I won't have to worry about special tires in some backwoods county w/o cellular connection

 

[TES-E]

Primacy still listed on the Michelin Tire Web site in this size.

 

[tls]

Thanks for the post.
One more special thing these Tesla's need.
One tire goes bad and I feel like I may need to replace all 4 to keep it riding the same

You're being ridiculous. Running one tire of a completely different type will cause noticeable handling differences on any car. On cars with mechanical AWD, it can even be unsafe.

I've replaced two individual tires on my 85D, in both cases due to sidewall damage. The first was with about 1,000 miles on the set of 4 stock tires; the second was with about 10,000 miles on the same set of tires, and was just a week ago. In neither case was there any noticeable difference in handling.

You're more likely to notice handling differences because you don't maintain your tires at the same pressure.

 

[Chopr147]

You're being ridiculous

It was tongue in cheek. Are you too close to Manhattan to get the sly?