Hi all:
It seems to me I have read some posts here where folks claim new tires wear faster when new and then the rate slows down and stabilizes. Does anyone have a reference for me that demonstrated this (at least for conditions they studied)? I just got some GoodYear WeatherReady all-weather tires for our Corolla. I have about 2k highway miles on them and using the depth rod on my digital caliper, (which I find is much more accurate than a standard mechanical tire tread depth gauge) they have started to wear at an average of 0.2/32" per thousand. Starting at 10/32" and at this rate, they will reach manufacturer warranty limit of 2/32" at 40 miles - long before the warranty of 60k miles. And, I should note we drive extremely conservatively and I routinely check tire pressure. If I project to 4/32" which I (and other respected organizations) believe is a much safer limit at which one should put on new tires, especially in snow and ice condition, that projects a lifetime of only 30k miles which, coincidentally, is about where I have found I needed to replace the first two sets of tires on this car. Perhaps some cars eat tires faster but I'll be monitoring the rate from time to time on this set as an interesting BITOG experiment.
The only reference I found was an interesting study done by this fellow, but it appears the slope of the initial wear rate is no different than during the life of the tire.
http://www.randomuseless.info/tires/tires.html
It seems to me I have read some posts here where folks claim new tires wear faster when new and then the rate slows down and stabilizes. Does anyone have a reference for me that demonstrated this (at least for conditions they studied)? I just got some GoodYear WeatherReady all-weather tires for our Corolla. I have about 2k highway miles on them and using the depth rod on my digital caliper, (which I find is much more accurate than a standard mechanical tire tread depth gauge) they have started to wear at an average of 0.2/32" per thousand. Starting at 10/32" and at this rate, they will reach manufacturer warranty limit of 2/32" at 40 miles - long before the warranty of 60k miles. And, I should note we drive extremely conservatively and I routinely check tire pressure. If I project to 4/32" which I (and other respected organizations) believe is a much safer limit at which one should put on new tires, especially in snow and ice condition, that projects a lifetime of only 30k miles which, coincidentally, is about where I have found I needed to replace the first two sets of tires on this car. Perhaps some cars eat tires faster but I'll be monitoring the rate from time to time on this set as an interesting BITOG experiment.
The only reference I found was an interesting study done by this fellow, but it appears the slope of the initial wear rate is no different than during the life of the tire.
http://www.randomuseless.info/tires/tires.html