Community Forums

Petcar · 09-29-2019, 07:51 PM

We tow a ‘14 Focus and it needs tires. They have been rotated regularly & pressure maintained.

Since towing seems to wear differently & faster than normal driving, I have a question for y’all.

Buy top of line tires, or mid range tires?

43,600 mi towed+ 35,000 driven, for 78,600 tot. mi. I’M DUE. Peter

skypilot_1 · 09-29-2019, 08:12 PM

You got your $$ worth out of those tires.
"faster than normal driving, 78,600 tot. mi." How many miles do you get on a set of tires not towing.......

bmcgc · 09-29-2019, 08:27 PM

I drive an 03 Civic for a work car. I usually get double + whatever the tire is rated at on the mileage warranty.

My last set were 30,000 mile tires, I got 72,000 and changed them at 4/32 tread.

Gary RVRoamer · 09-30-2019, 01:34 PM

How do you judge mid-range vs top end tires? Is it price alone? I usually buy whatever I think provides good value for the money, meaning good tread wear and reliability at a reasonable price. That is seldom one of the highly touted brands, since they are often over-priced. More often a second tier manufacturer, or perhaps the secondary brand from a 1st tier company. Michelin, for example, also makes Goodrich, and Bridgestone makes Firestones. I'm running Goodyear Eagles on my car now, cause GY had an excellent promotion on a set of 4 when I went tire shopping.

gmc70 · 09-30-2019, 03:54 PM

I would love to get 70,000 on a set of tires. On the street rods the rears always wear out first for some reason.

shootist · 09-30-2019, 06:59 PM

I put 80,000 mile guaranteed. Michelin tires on my tundra 12 years ago. 63k driving and 11k towing, still got a little left in them. Straight suv road tire, no all weather or mud and snow will do that.

Petcar · 09-30-2019, 07:45 PM

Ok! You caught me. Made me dig deeper since my memory is worth...

Tires were replaced July ‘16. Now towed mi = 24,500, driven mi=18,900 for tot. 43,400 mi on Dunlop Signature II. Give me a break, I’m only some 34,000 mi off.

Think I’ll go back to Ford, who put the Dunlops last time, and get them again.

Tires were $480 mounted & balanced + $79 4 wheel alignment. Peter

PS: sorry if anyone got overly excited about mileage.

schad · 10-01-2019, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary RVRoamer

How do you judge mid-range vs top end tires? Is it price alone?

There are a bunch of tire characteristics. Dry, wet, mud, gravel, and snow performance. Speed rating, number of plies, wear rate, and road noise. Run-flat or not. All of these can be rated fairly objectively; some of them are even required by the DOT to be rated and stamped on the sidewall by the manufacturer.

And there's nothing wrong with the second-tier manufacturers, but I caution against going below that. My mother kept buying them for her car because she just bought whatever the cheapest was. They were terrible in all weather and on all road surfaces and gave a tooth-breaking ride. They hardly wore at all, true, but she kept getting slow leaks and flats that meant she ended up replacing one every year or two anyway. I finally made her stop and get decent tires, and all those problems went away.

Don't automatically rule out Michelin (or any other "overpriced" manufacturer), though. For my wheel sizes, it turned out that Michelins were the cheapest.