I need to get new tires for my car. I have one tire which I had to buy due to a unrepairable which only has 8,000 miles on it. Could I just replace 3 tires and not 4?
What kind of car? If it has AWD, I’d say no, and encourage you to get all 4. Your owner’s manual should support this.
If a typical FWD or RWD, sure you can only buy 3, but only if they are the same size and brand. Mismatched tires on the same axle can lead to some problems more expensive than getting the fourth tire. I’m assuming it is a typical FWD, as they are the most common today, and you’ve already driven 8,000 miles on a tire that is less worn than all the others.
If it’s not a 4WD or AWD car. You can probably get away with it assuming the replacement is the same model. Look into having the 3 tire shaved to more closely match the newer tire.
Thanks, I have a 2005 Lexus RX330 AWD. Probably will get 4 new tires, but wanted to make sure that the tire shop was not just giving me a sales job.
With AWD, it’s always a good idea to get all 4 tires at the same time. The shop is telling you this because they don’t want the liability of damaging your center differential, which is an expensive fix.
With only 8k miles on the new tire, how many miles on the other tires now? If they’re nearly to the wear bars, you may have already done some damage to the center diff.
8000 miles typically in not much wear. Check with Lexus on official answer on AWD but it may have no spec on this as it is not a “real” AWD vehicle just part-time.
A great option is call tirerack.com and purchase the exact replacement tire make/model and have them shave it to match the wear of the other three tires. They ship the tire (usually quickly) if you can wait a day or so.
There’s no problem what-so-ever replacing 3 tires on a 4wd system. That only applies to AWD systems.