Tire Shops - Do they know how to lift a Tesla?

[wdolson]

And how would the tire know if the force applied to it came from a slowing motor or a brake? The tire doesn't care, it wears the same if the force is the same. Tesla tires were fast for another reason: you don't hear how much power your using (Although looking in the rearview mirror wondering why all the ICE are bugs in amber after every stop light should be a clue)

When braking some kind of friction surface needs to absorb the changes in acceleration while it's happening. With conventional brakes, it's the brake pads that absorb most of the energy. With regen braking, a bit is absorbed in the mechanical mechanism between the wheel and motor, but most is absorbed by the tires.

It's been over 30 years since I took Dynamics (Mechanical Engineering course). I can see the mechanism, but can't explain it very well. Probably why I only got a B in the course...

And I rarely "launch". I play a game with myself to get the best efficiency. I probably could have gotten close to 20K out of the first set of Goodyear tires if I hadn't gotten a bad flat and decided to replace them early at around 15.5K. It was clear I was going to need tires by winter this year. The difference in my driving pattern from some other owners is I work from home and have only taken one multi-day road trip thus far and a handful of day trips around the area. The bulk of my miles have been city driving stopping and starting from traffic lights and stop signs.

Another thing that will scrub tires is turning, especially at speed. I've done some of that, we live at the mouth of the Columbia Gorge. But that isn't all that common for me. I drive in town more than anything else.

I suspect the people who see around 30K miles from a set of tires drive on the highway at a relatively constant speed in a straight line a lot more than I do.

OK, I see what you’re saying, although I wouldn’t really say that the excess tire wear is caused by regen breaking in itself, but more by the implementation of regen breaking in the Tesla and the way one pedal driving works. It also is probably dependent on the way people drive.

While I have regen set to standard I typically don’t just lift my foot off of the accelerator as I drive, but rather feather it back and try to hold it in the ‘sweet spot’ where the car can coast with no acceleration or regen applied when I want to coast. The only time I lift my foot off the pedal entirely is when I actually want to slow down and would have applied the brakes if I didn’t have regen.

I try to hit the sweet spot and coast when I can too.

Before I got my Tesla I had a Prius which also has regenerative brakes, but in the Prius they are tied to the brake pedal and not the gas pedal. When you lift you foot off the gas pedal in a Prius it coasts just as an ICE car would, then the regen brakes are applied as you hit the brake pedal. If you press the brake pedal hard then the standard brakes are applied as well.

So I don’t agree that regen in itself causes excess tire wear, but I can see how the Tesla implementation can cause it as people typically tend to be accelerating or slowing and rarely just coasting.

I don't know how much the Prius regen brakes compared to Tesla. It's a lighter car with a motor on only one axle with a much smaller battery. That's a lot of variables to consider. I don't know much about Prius tire wear. I know a number of people who own one or have owned one, but I never have. When I was getting my tires changed at Costco there was a Prius on the lift next to my car and I marveled at how small its tires looked by comparison. They are probably cheaper to re-tire than Teslas are.

 

[IchDochNicht]

Just got my rear tires replaced by Tesla Mobile Serivce. That was a great experience - it happened quickly, and the guy was super nice!

Initially, I tried a local tire place, but they were not able to get the matching tires with the foam inside. I did not want to risk having more road noise, so I decided to pay extra for the OEM types through Tesla.

 

[robby]

When braking some kind of friction surface needs to absorb the changes in acceleration while it's happening. With conventional brakes, it's the brake pads that absorb most of the energy. With regen braking, a bit is absorbed in the mechanical mechanism between the wheel and motor, but most is absorbed by the tires.

The first part of this is dead on, but the second part isn't quite right.

With traditional braking, there is force applied to the caliper, creating friction between the disc and the brake pad, thus converting the vehicle's kinetic energy into thermal energy. This loss of kinetic energy results in deceleration, which creates longitudinal slip between the tire and the road, resulting in another force (friction) between the rubber and the pavement. This latter force is what wears a tire when braking.

Here's where things go a little off the rails: regen braking does not change the relationship of these two forces; it just changes the mechanism by which the vehicle loses its kinetic energy (instead of converting it to thermal energy, it converts it to electrical energy). But the tire doesn't "care" about how that energy is converted; it only cares that the kinetic energy is lost, resulting in the deceleration that creates the slip.

Hard braking leads to higher frictional forces than soft braking, and there is almost certainly a difference between regen and mechanical braking habits. But if one were to apply those braking systems equally (accounting for the relative losses of each system), the wear at the tire would be exactly the same.

 

[Model S M.D.]

Just got my rear tires replaced by Tesla Mobile Serivce. That was a great experience - it happened quickly, and the guy was super nice!

Initially, I tried a local tire place, but they were not able to get the matching tires with the foam inside. I did not want to risk having more road noise, so I decided to pay extra for the OEM types through Tesla.

I'll probably end up doing the same, even though you could get em for alot cheaper through tire rack and a local shop. For me the peace of mind (and in your case convenience of a mobile service) is worth the extra $$$. Don't want to deal with explaining stuff, watching over them, buying little hockey pucks, etc.

 

[mbhforum]

I just got back from my Tesla SC and they replaced all of my Michelin’s with new ones I ordered from tirerack and only charged me $135 after tax. (PLUS I got a car wash and software update as a bonus!). Not bad....

 

[City Racer]

I have been using these on my MS and MX with no issues. With the tire repair kit in the trunk. Hockey puck (Modell's) and rubber plug (Ace hardware) screwed together. It fits the center jack point hole just right.

What's the purpose of the rubber plug? In later posts people said they just use hockey pucks

 

[IchDochNicht]

I'll probably end up doing the same, even though you could get em for alot cheaper through tire rack and a local shop. For me the peace of mind (and in your case convenience of a mobile service) is worth the extra $$$. Don't want to deal with explaining stuff, watching over them, buying little hockey pucks, etc.

Yes, my initial try was the local Wheel Works. They appeared to have experience with Teslas, and were very friendly, but they left the car with black, greasy spots in many places. I had to do quite a bit of clean-up.

The Tesla guy never moved the car. He got his tools out, removed the wheel, did his thing and never touched anything that he didn't need to. Cost was about $100 more than Wheel works, though.