I have a 1999 Saab 9-5 that eats tires.I bought it in 2007 with 20,000 miles. It now has 110,000 miles. My first set of tires, Toyos, got only 35.000 miles before they were worn out. The tire guy told me to expect around 60,000 when I bought them. Replaced them with GY Eagles which showed significant wear with only 20,000 on them. Tires rotated/bal every 6000 miles or so. The alignment was checked as was suspension, joints, fittings, etc. All checked out fine. Both sets of tires show even wear over all four tires each time. The local mechanic, the tire guy and the regional Saab guru all said, “some cars eat tires, yours is one of them”. I don’t buy that. Your opinions?..and thank you in advance for your sage advice.
Tire wear in performance tires can be poor. Since everything on the car affecting tire wear has been checked, and there are no signs of abnormal wear patterns, it may be that the size and speed rating required by your car manifest themselves as a higher performance tire. Higher performance tires use softer rubber compounds that simply do not wear as well.
My suggestion is to visit the technical sections of www.tirerack.com and www.1010tires.com, become familiar with the meanings of the markings of your sidewalls, and use those combined with the consomer feedback sections of these site to select tires in the future. I think if you do this your expectations and the performance of your tires will better match each other.
A tip of the hat to you. by the way, for being conscienscious. I wish more people were.
35,000 is about right, 60,000 would be very surprising.
What size are the tires?
I’m not convinced that you really have a car problem and by regional SAAB guru I assume you mean someone that is not affiliated directly with SAAB. I can’t see a factory boy saying something like that and my SAABs did not and do not eat tires.
For what it’s worth, I’ve had a set of GY Eagles in the past and so has my daughter. Tread wear was similar and I vaguely remember the Toyos I had on my first SAAB being good for about 35-40k miles.
I’m in agreement with the comments made by mountainbike and texases. When buying tires always pay attention to the UTOG ratings which are molded into the side of the tires. That will give you info about treadwear life, traction, and temperature ratings; relatively speaking.
You may find that the treadwear rating on the Eagles is comparatively low.
Tire wear without talking about driving habits means you get pretty inconsistent results. Fwd cars are very suseptable to premature wear on the front wheels if not driven very conservatively. I have never had a fwd car with tires lasting anywhere near as long as my rwd cars and trucks. Awd Subarus showed the best results. Consider anything more then 35 to 40 k to be exceptional or you are a very conservative driver.
I have never gotten 35000 miles out of any car, but then I corner too fast.