Hello,
I am going to buy some new tires (Pirelli Cinturo P7) for my 2012 Subaru Legacy (AWD). I was just wondering if anyone has had personal experience with these tires? Also, will an AWD vehicle go through tires faster than a FWD or RWD vehicle?
Just wondering what you all think? These tires have a 70k warranty. Do you think I could get at least 50k out of them if I drive conservatively?
I’ve not had those (they’re the ‘All Season Plus’ version, right?), but I’ve had 5 sets of Pirellis over the years, no problems. I don’t think AWD wear out tires faster. If you keep them fully inflated (sticker in the car) you should do OK. I often put a couple of extra psi in.
It’s always useful to check the consumer survey ratings on Tire Rack’s web site.
In my 20 years of owning AWD cars after owning fwd, I have found the opposite is true. Becasue you aren’t asking one set of tires to do everything, which puts abnormally higher wear on them, AWD does a better job in the wear department. Still rotate them twice a year, but rwd, AWD all have an advantage over fwd. of course, if you have aggressive driving habits, nothing will save you. 
The other thing, no all season tire will give you much service if you drive on them in snow. You find that you have to change them before they are half worn to given any semblance of good snow traction, and the poor ones will disappoint you even earlier. If you are not expecting good winter traction out of them though, they should go 50 k if you give them good maintenance and stay off the throttle and brakes excesily. Their wear is in the driver’s hands.
AWD does not replace good tires, it augments them.
dagosa wrote:
Becasue you aren’t asking one set of tires to do everything, which puts abnormally higher wear on them, AWD does a better job in the wear department
I generally agree with this, but I’ll point out that this effect can vary by car because many cars still drive one set of wheels more than the others when full traction isn’t needed. My old car was front-biased but my current car is rear-biased, which is probably better for even wear.
Visit www.tirerack.com and www.1010tires.com. Both have great consumer feedback sections.
My personal opinion of Pirelli is that you pay a lot for the name. There are other good tires for a lot less.
In the November issue of Consumer Reports, they published their annual tire ratings, and for the first time they considered the issue of how many miles the tires are likely to go vis-a-vis the tread wear warranty. As you would expect, there were several tire models that they determined to not be able to provide the manufacturer’s claimed tread wear, but the good news is that there were also tire models that met the manufacturer’s claims.
One of the better ones in this regard was–guess what?–the Pirelli Cinturato P7, which CR projected to last for the entire 70k miles that the mfr claims. The other brand that did very well–as it usually does–is Michelin.
At the bottom of the barrel was the Nokian Entyre, which–despite the mfr’s claim of 80k miles-- would actually be worn-out by 35k miles. Ouch!
Tire Rack tested the Bridgestone Turanza Serenity Plus, Continental PureContact with EcoPlus Technology, Michelin Premier A/S and Pirelli Cinturat P7 All Season Plus. The Pirellis didn’t have quite the wet traction that the Michelin or Continental tires did, but the snow traction of the Pirellis was much better than the other tires. I have these Continue tires on my Accord, and they do quite well in any weather.
" I have these Continue tires on my Accord"
Based on the “Continue” model name, I guess that they must feature very long tread life.
;-))
the reason for the misconception that awd/4wd were out tires faster is…
the tires !
Yes , it’s just anectodal evidence that it’s due to the awd/4wd
BUT
The fact is that …when you have awd/4wd…you are ( genearally ) choosing a tire with a more aggressive tread than the tires on your Camry.
Most of THOSE kinds of tires have a lower tread-wear rating off the rack.
I actually typed “Contis” and spell check did its usual stupid thing.
Pirelli is mixing up their tire names, used to be the P7 was the ultra high performance summer tire. Now there are lots of different ones.
Part time 4 wheel drive will chew up the tires a lot esp. if it is used on dry roads or the highway but you should only buy that for plowing or off roading. The Subarau all wheel drive system is superb and will have no adverse effect on your tire life. Don’t drive like me, I still consider it a sport.
I just hope that the OP remembers to rotate his tires correctly, as per Subaru’s maintenance schedule.
Whether he follows Subaru’s specified 7,500 mile rotation schedule, or he decides to do it every 5k miles, the bottom line is that failure to have his tires rotated on a consistent mileage interval basis will lead to uneven tread wear, and that will eventually lead to expensive damage to the AWD mechanism.
Every time I buy a set of new tires, they seem to cost twice as much as the previous set…
Tires have gotten outrageous in the past five years. All the more reason to do plenty of research on consumer feedback sites etc. before buying. The cost today demands an intelligent choice, yet many people still buy them as if they were a cheap throw-away item.