New 18" tires needed after only 30K Miles, normal tread wear?

[israndy]

I probably should have rotated my tires, but I have 5 cars and have yet to rotate the tires on any of them. I was surprised to be told by the SvC that my tread in the back was below the legal limit.

Has anyone had to replace their Model 3 tires yet? I just rotated back to front and I will see if I can get more life out of the set, hoping the wear continues on the rear. Not sure how I keep track of my tire pressure monitors. How do I rotate which one goes to which?

-Randy

 

[SD_Engnr]

I probably should have rotated my tires, but I have 5 cars and have yet to rotate the tires on any of them. I was surprised to be told by the SvC that my tread in the back was below the legal limit.

Has anyone had to replace their Model 3 tires yet? I just rotated back to front and I will see if I can get more life out of the set, hoping the wear continues on the rear. Not sure how I keep track of my tire pressure monitors. How do I rotate which one goes to which?

-Randy

30k is a lot higher than others, and is pretty good considering the torque of the M3 motors.

No need to keep track of the sensors, they are not wheel specific.

 

[OCR1]

I’d be pretty happy if I got 30K miles on my Michelin tires. The last Michelin’s I had on my Lexus only went 25K miles. Not rotating probably didn’t help.

 

[Rockster]

Have about 23k on the 3. Didn’t rotate. Need rears.

 

[suwaneedad]

Randy I have 26k on my LR RWD, and rotated one time back at 6k when I was at the SvcCtr anyway getting a due bill handled. All four of mine are at 4 or 5/32nds as of today, so roughly half of where they were new (8/32 on the OEM version of these tires). I run my car at half (or more) road trip highway miles, the rest ~local driving, and run mine at 44PSI cold.

I'm actually turning out to be pretty happy with the life I'm getting, since the wear bars are at 2/32, so I'm essentially ~halfway through their useful life at 26k. If I do see 50k from a set of OEM tires (on any vehicle, not just my 3) I will be really pleased.

Your next set will likely do better, because the non-OEMs have 10/32 when new rather than 8/32, based on what I've read.

I don't think rotating is worth paying money for...might as well just stash that 'savings' toward replacement. But I do know that I wouldn't run on tires that are down to the wear bars here in the Southeast during the summer rainy season. Good to hear you can get away with that where you are in CA.

 

[Hkbruin]

I’m at 24k miles since August ‘18 on my 19” Michelin’s and other than a reddish tinge to the rubber when dry, my tread has minimal wear. I rotated my tires once at 12k miles so I’m due for another (although it’s recommended at 5-6k intervals).

 

[jamnmon66]

Burned through my rears in about 14-15k miles. Really bad center wear indicating over inflation. I'm settling the pressure on my new rears to 38. Leaving the fronts at 42.

 

[Hkbruin]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I am around 41-42 PSI.
Another thing worth mentioning is that around the 12k miles mark I began feeling vibrations through the suspension and was rattling components under the wood trim ever so slightly so that it made a buzzing noise. The Tesla rep said that was because of the uneven wear on the tires. Well after the rotation the vibration did go away. With my odometer about to pass the 24k mark, sure enough the vibrations are starting to occur again. I think stretching your rotation intervals to 12k is the longest you want to go, and really it should be at 6k. It cost around $50 at Oceanside, CA for the rotation and I was able to schedule next day appointment there, and was done within 2hrs.

 

[sduck]

Rotate your tires. You! And you too! No really, it's stupid to throw away money and add to the growing pile of used tires in the world just because you didn't bother to rotate them. Do it. It's easy and cheap.

 

[Adrien]

Rotate your tires. You! And you too! No really, it's stupid to throw away money and add to the growing pile of used tires in the world just because you didn't bother to rotate them. Do it. It's easy and cheap.

Serious question: How does rotating help after you do it once? Why not take the rears down to the legal limit then swap and wait again until down to the limit.

Never understood why do it at 6k miles vs like 15k-20k.

 

[Legen---dary]

Serious question: How does rotating help after you do it once? Why not take the rears down to the legal limit then swap and wait again until down to the limit.

Never understood why do it at 6k miles vs like 15k-20k.

Yeah. I'm wondering the same, but I know nothing about tires.

Could we run a different type of tire on the rear, with the same diameter? Then replace those as needed? (for RWD cars)

 

[Leafdriver333]

Serious question: How does rotating help after you do it once? Why not take the rears down to the legal limit then swap and wait again until down to the limit.

Never understood why do it at 6k miles vs like 15k-20k.

You are assuming the traction level stays comparable throughout the life of the tread.
Even if the variation is greater than desirable, maybe, Tesla computer can sort it out and make the car handle safely understeer.
If you live in California where the pavements stay dry and above freezing for the most of the year, it would not matter much anyway.

If the above statements are false, then rotating the tires to keep them at close tread depth all around would be beneficial.

 

[Leafdriver333]

Yeah. I'm wondering the same, but I know nothing about tires.

Could we run a different type of tire on the rear, with the same diameter? Then replace those as needed? (for RWD cars)

Different tires will have different grip. on wet pavement or snow, the difference in the rubber compound and tread pattern could make the difference in grip level too much for the computer to handle.
I would either
1. rotate the tires and keep the treads close. and replace all 4 when the time comes.
2. let the rears wear down and replace the rears with same new tires.

 

[Matt L]

I probably should have rotated my tires, but I have 5 cars and have yet to rotate the tires on any of them. I was surprised to be told by the SvC that my tread in the back was below the legal limit.

Has anyone had to replace their Model 3 tires yet? I just rotated back to front and I will see if I can get more life out of the set, hoping the wear continues on the rear. Not sure how I keep track of my tire pressure monitors. How do I rotate which one goes to which?

-Randy

“Only” 30k?

How much do expect? I’d be happy with 30k

 

[mswlogo]

“Only” 30k?

How much do expect? I’d be happy with 30k

They are rated for 55K

Tires I just bought are rated for 70K

Look on TireRack reviews, you can filter reviews by distance driven. Plenty of folks get the rated range on tires.

Anything less than 40K is terrible IMHO. They are not cheap to replace. And eat whatever you think your saving in fuel. I’ve always come close to the rated distance on tires.

Rotate, watch your pressure and go easy on the accelerator.

 

[run-the-joules]

Anything less than 40K is terrible IMHO. They are not cheap to replace.

Ah yes. Finances over safety.

Your tires are the biggest factor in your ability to safely use the car: braking and turning. You can have long life or you can have good traction.

Me? I’ll take traction every time.

Of course, I also have a heavy foot because enjoyment is more important than tire lifespan, too.

Trying to remember for sure but I don’t think I’ve ever had a set of tires make it past 20,000, but I also tend to replace before absolutely needed as well. My motorcycle front tire needs replacement every 2,500 miles or so and the rear makes it around 5,000... car tires are almost immortal in comparison.

 

[afadeev]

Serious question: How does rotating help after you do it once? Why not take the rears down to the legal limit then swap and wait again until down to the limit.

You can do that, but then you will be shopping for the identical tire model/make as the one you just wore off.
Sometimes that's possible, sometimes compounds and tire tread designs change by the time you need to purchase another 2-/4-tire set. Then what do you do? Riding on mismatched sets per axle is not fun.

Another complication is uneven traction across front/rear axles with unevenly worn tires. Depending on the tire compounds, they get either harder (tire ages) or software and gripper (custom lower layer) as the tire wears off. Managing the varying traction between new/old sets of two tiers becomes a challenge in the dry, and 10x more so in the wet when new deeper treads will track over standing water while worn-off rubber will hydroplane. Not fun.

By rotating and keeping wear even across all four tires, you get to maintain consistent grip across all four corners, and swap tires out in one sequence. Then you can go shopping for either the same, or better set of new tires. Tire technology continues improving, and you can almost always buy a better set the next time around.

Never understood why do it at 6k miles vs like 15k-20k.

Softer performance tires may not last 20K miles, so waiting 1/2 that long is probably too long.
I rotate mine every time I swap between summer<->winter wheels, or every 5-8K miles.

YMMV,
a

 

[Watts_Up]

I probably should have rotated my tires, but I have 5 cars and have yet to rotate the tires on any of them.
I was surprised to be told by the SvC that my tread in the back was below the legal limit.

Since I recently purchase a Model 3 LR 4WD, I wanted to record the original alignment
for future reference, so last weekend I get my car checked.

I have only about 600 miles, and I did scratch a little bit the passenger side rims on a curb,
however, while the parameters such as Camber and Caster were fine,
I was surprised to notice that all the wheels had a toe slightly out of range:

Below are all the values before and after performing the alignment:
I plan now to rotate my tires and check my alignment every 6 months or so.

 

[Watts_Up]

Has anyone had to replace their Model 3 tires yet?
I just rotated back to front and I will see if I can get more life out of the set, hoping the wear continues on the rear.
Not sure how I keep track of my tire pressure monitors. How do I rotate which one goes to which?

There are some interesting threads dealing with the rotation process. I noticed in particular:

2019 03 11 - Tire Rotation Strategy

2015 03 31 - Skip Every Other Tire Rotation

Here are various rotation combination patterns:

I would personally add another pattern (D) were I would simply exchange front and rear of a same side
(just because I don't want to have all my wheels to get the same rim curb damages.)​

 

[zhu-]

Since I recently purchase a Model 3 LR 4WD, I wanted to record the original alignment
for future reference, so last weekend I get my car checked.

I have only about 600 miles, and I did scratch a little bit the passenger side rims on a curb,
however, while the parameters such as Camber and Caster were fine,
I was surprised to notice that all the wheels had a toe slightly out of range:

View attachment 405731


Below are all the values before and after performing the alignment:
I plan now to check my alignment every 6 months or so.

View attachment 405727

How much of a toe range is there for adjusting? Can more toe be dialed in?