The tires are Bridgestone Potenza RE92. The front tires have worn evenly but the treads are low and rainy season is coming (if the drought ends). I live on the San Francisco Peninsula and the roads - at least where I drive - are decent.
I’ll replace all four tires.
Thanks to everyone for your replies.
The only concern for me would be the age of the old tires. You have to inspect them for tiny cracks but even that is not accurate. I have rarely been good at rotating tires, my back hurts and if I have to pay someone else to do it, I just add the money to the new tire fund. Buying 2 tires at a time is also lighter on my pocket.
I’ll go a little off topic . . .
I don’t have a high opinion of Bridgestone tires in general
It just seems that they don’t last very long, and quite often don’t wear as well as some other brands
I guess you could say I’m biased against them
I have have wonderful life out of Bridgestone tires including the RE92a and the RE960 although the high performance models. They remained quiet throughout the entire life and similar traction start to finish.
My concern with such old tires would be the cruddy traction as the rubber seems to harden up. That happened to me RE960 when they hit 50k/7years old.
Now, I’m REALLY glad that you have decided to replace all 4, because I am only too familiar with those tires. Even though you don’t have to deal with snow in your area of the country, I can tell you that–even with AWD–my '02 Outback had a very difficult time getting traction in the winter–and that was when the RE92 tires were brand new!
The absolute uselessness of those RE92 tires in the winter was what caused me to buy my first set of winter tires, and the difference was like night and day.
However, after about 20k miles of wear on those crappy Bridgestones, they also became borderline useless on rainy surfaces, and also began to develop a lot of road noise. When I got the 3rd puncture on those tires, I used it as my excuse to dump them–even though there was still plenty of tread left on them. The replacement BF Goodrich tires–although cheaper than the RE-92s–were superior in every way.
“I don’t have a high opinion of Bridgestone tires in general”
My experience with the RE92s definitely soured me on that brand, but I have to say that I am also not very fond of Continental tires. When I replaced the OEM Contis on my current vehicle, I splurged on Michelins–which are my brand of choice. Like the difference between the Bridgestones and my BG Goodies, the improvement by switching over to Michelin Defenders was…vast…in comparison with the OEM Contis.
Continental tires . . . another brand that is probably overrated
Michelin is also my brand of choice
If I buy a car and it has some other brand on it, I’ll run with them until it’s time for tires. At which point I buy Michelin
When I was at the Benz dealer, most of the new cars either came with Conti or Michelin. The price was identical. In other words, the same car with Michelin didn’t cost more versus equipped with Conti
One time a customer test drove a new car, and when it came time to talk numbers, they like the car and the price, but not the tires, which were Continental. He said, I’ll take it with Michelins, or not at all
“If I buy a car and it has some other brand on it, I’ll run with them until it’s time for tires. At which point I buy Michelin”
+1
However, I did break my cardinal rule of using only Michelins as replacements when it came time to get rid of the RE92s. Because I was somewhat cash-strapped at the time, I compromised on BF Goodies. Now that I am back in…comfortable…financial shape, it is Michelin ONLY for me.
All tires are made with a compromise between cost, performance, ride quality and life.
With OEM tires low cost comes first and life gets bottom priority.
18,000 miles on the front of a FWD car sounds 'bout right to me for OEMs.
My Toyota Matrix came with Continentals that might have made a good swing, but weren’t so good holding the car off the ground.
Continental makes some great bicycle tires though.
The front tires wore rapidly on the extreme inside edge, not a gradual taper as if the camber were off.
Alignment checked out OK at two different shops; and others complained on the internets about the same problem.
Besides regular front to back rotations I had the tires flipped on the rims to swap the inside and outside edges.
After the flip the “new” inside edges wore down evenly; and they were much quieter.
All told I got 25,000 miles out of them.
My current Yokohama Avid Envigors now have almost 25,000 miles on them and they are about 1/2 worn, evenly.
With regard to Bridgestone tires:" I guess you could say I’m biased against them “
@db4690–It didn’t take much to get you to belt this out”.
My Mazda CX-9 came with Bridgestones, it is a 2010 and now has 42000 miles on it and still some thread left. I have rotated them twice and hopefully the previous owner has done so too. I don’t have any gripes.
I once got a Kia that had brand new Michelin’s on it; they were noisy and bit the dust one by one in the next 10K miles. Not sure what was wrong with them, they weren’t too old either. I put some no name tires on the car and it rode so much better. That has made me reluctant to pay the premium price for the brand.
“My Mazda CX-9 came with Bridgestones, it is a 2010 and now has 42000 miles on it and still some thread left”.
???
Are you referring to the tire’s tread, or are you talking about the “threads” that comprise the internal structure of the tire’s cords?
I really hope that you are referring to tire tread, and that the threads have not disappeared from within the tire’s structure.
@Triedaq
“It didn’t take much to get you to belt this out”
As a mechanic, I’ve seen all sorts of tires over the years, lots of different brands, different tread patterns, different usage, etc.
But the Bridgestones consistently didn’t do well, not the ones I encountered, anyways
So, even though this discussion hadn’t been going on very long before I stated my dislike of bridgestone, I had seen plenty of junky Bridgestone tires long before this discussion even started
@db4690–I was playing off your sentence “I guess you could say I am biased against them”. I was thinking about the old bias ply tires with the fiberglass belt. This was before the days of radial tires and one has to be a geezer to remember them.
I’ve never had Bridgestone tires on a car. I ran on recaps until I could afford new tires and then bought Duralon tires (I think they were made by Dayton) at my local Quality Farm and Fleet store. After I got married, Mrs. Triedaq insists on replacing tires with Michelin. Brands like Bridgestone, Dunlop, Nokio, etc confuse me. I come from the days of Armstrong, Sieberling, Lee, Allstate, Atlas, Davis Deluxe (Western Auto) as well as the five major brands that came on new cars–Goodyear, General, B.F. Goodrich, U.S. Royal and Firestone.
Michelin are good tires, but I’m personally partial to the Goodyear TripleTreads. Decent lifetime and in my experience grip better than other all season tires. They seem unaffected by rain, and good enough in snow and ice (I’m just not going to waste money on Winter tires).
@Treidaq–You and I come from a similar age, when Armstrong tires g-r-r-r-r-i-p-p-e-d the road.
@VDCdriver–I’m glad there is someone from my generation on this board. I never heard of Michelin tires when I was growing up, let alone Dunlop, Bridgestone etc.
Anyone have thoughts on the General Altimax RT Standard Touring All-Season tires ($48.00 each on closeout sale)?
At tirerack.com they are about half the price of the Bridgestone Potenzas and have a higher consumer rating. The Michelin Defender Standard Touring All-Season tires have the exact same rating as the Generals at tirerack and cost about the same as the Potenzas.
Thanks again to all who have commented. You have helped me a lot.
" I’m personally partial to the Goodyear TripleTreads. Decent lifetime and in my experience grip better than other all season tires. They seem unaffected by rain, and good enough in snow and ice."
When a friend of mine decided that he didn’t want winter tires, I advised him to get a set of Goodyear Triple Treds. They did indeed provide very good traction for a few years, but by the time that they were down to 6/32 of an inch of tread depth, the noise level in the car became truly deafening. When I rode with him in his car, we actually had to SHOUT in order to be heard over the road noise at any speed over 45 mph. And, the winter traction declined severely by that same 6/32 wear point.
My friend opted to ditch the TripleTreds at that point, due to the noise and traction issues, even though–technically–he could have gotten a lot more use from them.
Joe, I loved the commercial! God, does that bring back memories!