Tire Wear

[fishjump]

Coming up on 50k and noticed my 265/50/R20's on the nittos are getting bear!

Is this normal wear, or should I be looking at another tire?

Paul

 

[Quijote]

Your tires made it to 50k and were hoping for more?

That’s pretty good if you asked me.

I suspect my OEM LR4 Continental tires could last me maybe 30k miles if I wanted to keep them that long. They suck, so I’m not putting them back on after this winter.

I’m used to sports sedans and sports cars only giving me 10-20k miles.

 

[fishjump]

Well I guess I've been spoilt by our Honda getting over 75k.

I'm just trying to gauge what to expect, or if there are other options out there. I know it's a heavy car, but 80% of my driving is highway.

 

[ryanjl]

50,000 on any SUV is a long life well lived for a tire. On an LR4, it's 95th percentile.

 

[jwest]

Well I guess I've been spoilt by our Honda getting over 75k.

I'm just trying to gauge what to expect, or if there are other options out there. I know it's a heavy car, but 80% of my driving is highway.

Yo Fish. A few things can improve the mileage wear % dramatically and have worked quite well for me.

Rotation 4 vs all 5:

I like to rotate all 5 tires so that the spare is the same wear. This will ensure there are zero issues about size on an axle if I need to use it for 3000 miles on a trip.

Some people will say they only buy 4 new tires and use those just continually moving the spare along. Guess what, now 10 yrs along and it's not even the same tire anymore and is not in the best condition either sitting out never worn.

Not using all 5 also then you now will be required to buy new tires 20% sooner. Yes, if you can normally get 5 years and 50k, now you instantly get 6 yrs and 60k because the mileage is split over 5 vs 4. In 4 sets, you basically have a free set because somewhere in there you bought a 5th new spare even if you never use it LOL.

Lastly about rotation, you should be aware that there is a fairly small % difference in rolling diameter that is ideally allowed on the lr3, and on many cars for that matter. On a sport tire with shallow depth it may not seem like much but on ours with rather deep treads, you could easily end up with a new depth spare on the ground opposite a 50% worn tire and running like that for long is not good at all for the differential, unless maybe you drove in a large circle toward the old tire side

Tire "flipping" which not many people think of, and it would be relatively pointless on a solid axle Land Rover like the Disco 2 but on the independent suspension rovers, the camber wears the heck out of the inner edge. I flipped my bfg at ko 1 only 1 time and got 75,000 miles and still sold them with 1/4-3/8" depth because I went up in tire size. Flipping them makes a HUGE difference on these suspensions that wear the tire unevenly.

Flipping of course is best only on symmetric treads non-directional treads but it can of course also work fine on symmetric directional tires.

This would work well on other high camber cars too like an Audi or BMW where the rear will wear the inside edge to almost cords while the middle to outer edge still looks like 40%.

You can also pay attention to the "tread wear rating" which is easy to find on sites like Tirerack. Note that some companies will often warranty for mileage rating but not on certain sizes within the same tire model. Probably because if a big ass truck is loaded heavy it'll wear more than the same tire on a basic suv.

 

[fishjump]

50,000 on any SUV is a long life well lived for a tire. On an LR4, it's 95th percentile.

Thanks Ryan. It's as I suspected, I just thought there may be a better option than the Nitto (which have been great in both snow and off-road).

 

[fishjump]

Wow, thanks Jwest for taking so much trouble to respond, I appreciate the detail. Yes keeping the spare in rotation was not something I had been doing. In fact the spare tire is the original and does not match the others.

 

[jwest]

You're welcome!

Most people only drive maybe average 10k / yr so they would notice as easily but for several yrs I was doing over 30k so it all became much more apparent then.

 

[fishjump]

Yes. I'm between 25 - 30k per year.

 

[Davidinseattle]

50,000 on any SUV is a long life well lived for a tire. On an LR4, it's 95th percentile.

for real bro? Are you driving that thing on two wheels and rotating every 5000 miles b/c that would equal about what I got on mine which was 25000 of very light driving (my wifes car). Granted, we got he Conti's as stock tires which were the same tires on my Cayenne S which lasted about 10000 miles so I was happy with 25k. Replaced them with Michelins. Much better tire.