Hey, dudes, Love the cartoon version of your show, btw.
OK, 25K, 30K, 50K? What’s the best tire to buy, assuming you live in an average state, your car’s a 4 year old Toyota Camry, and you have two children who are of reasonable weight, and a spouse who only rarely drives on very hot pavement? Our potholes are not craters. Heavy rains are uncommon, and TRUE winter conditions are unheard of in the Mid-Atlantic.
I bought 50K vanilla tires from SEARS. Maybe “road handlers” not sure. Anyhoo, They put 'em on, aligned 'em, balanced 'em. I’ve been rotating 'em every 8 months. Now it’s been 28K miles and just over 2 years later, and they’re bald as your brother.
What’s a warranty when the words don’t mean anything? How does one make a decision with respect to such expectations of quality. I’m an economist, so I know about the whole buyer-beware thing, but I suspect tire/wheel questions generate more than their worthy share of controversy, (so I’ll understand if an answer to this is not quick in coming). However, new tires are expensive (more so in the present economy), and the question is illustrative in the whole auto world: what is needed, expected and claimed, versus asymetric information and consumer rights.
Thanks for thinking about this, and for offering snippets of opinion, any of which would be greeted as gospel, knowing your reputation for reasonable discourse on such matters,
Pat Cardiff
I don’t go by warranty. A better indicator is the UTOG ratting. The higher the UTOG ratting the longer life expectancy. I’ve had real good luck with Michelins and Kumho tires for my wifes Accord. We’ve gotten well over 80k on either of those tires.
Another thing that wears tires out very quickly is aggressive driving. If you drive aggressively…SLOW DOWN.
A large wear component of tires is how much you turn. If you drive mainly highway miles the turns of course are gradual mostly posing much less wear.
Driving city/town driving the turns of course are sharp adding to the wear.
The warranty is only a sales gimmick at best. Most people will not attain it but a smaller subset will. Of course you can collect on it but its prorated for the mileage left on your tires and does not include install costs which can be substantial relative to the cost of average inexpensive tires. The treadwear warranty only serves as a feel good item nothing else.
Not sure on UTOG rating. My last set of tires(Bridgestone RE92a’s) had a UTOG rating of 160 and had substantial life on them when I replaced due to poor winter traction at 40k miles. My next set of tires that are also Bridgestone with a UTOG rating of 400 are half worn down with 15k miles on the same car.
I agree (as I usually do) with Mike.
Additionally, the OP did not mention how often he checks his tire pressure. Did he conscientiously keep his tires inflated at least to the car manufacturer’s recommended pressure?
Failure to maintain the correct tire pressure will inevitably lead to shorter tread life, as well as to poor handling, and to lower gas mileage. When you consider how simple it is to check/correct tire pressure on a regular basis, the benefit is very significant.
I have had good success reading Consumer Reports reviews on All Season Tires and then going to tirerack.com and seeing whether the CR testing matches the reviews there.
If you didn’t get 50K out of the tires, and if you can prove you rotated and aligned when recommended by Sears, then you have a case to get a proration towards the same or different tires. Mileage warranties are mileage warranties, unless marked as illustrative, estimated, or expected. Tread depth or something like a 6 year tread depth warranties should be specifically stated in the paperwork you should have received at time of sale. I am very careful about purchasing mileage warranties only, since some manufacturers do not warrant light truck tires for any time at all, now.
Tire warranties work like battery warranties. If the product fails prematurely, they will pay for a portion of the replacement battery, depending on how premature the failure was. They don’t just give you a free replacement battery. With tires, that means they will give you a discount on replacement tires based on how much warranty period remained and how much tread remained. Because driving habits and mechanical problems can lead to premature tire wear, the warranty only protects you from normal even tread wear. Most tire wear isn’t even though, so sometimes it is hard to prove the tires were not as good as advertised. After all, they should not have to replace abused tires or tires that were used on vehicles with worn out suspension components.
The written warranty is what really matters here. You don’t tell us why Sears didn’t discount replacement tires if, indeed, they were warranted for 50,000 miles and they were bald after only 28,000 miles. They should have given you a discount of almost half the cost of replacement tires and they probably would not have charged your for the labor. So tell us the rest of the story. What happened when you tried to file a warranty claim at Sears?
I want to point out that tire warranties are based on a discount from the LIST price of the tires. If the customer purchased the tires at a sale price, a discount based on the list price of a tire could easily wind up costing almost as much as the original that was bought at a discount.
In fact, I have heard of tire dealers dredging up an absurdly high list price that nobody ever paid (due to frequent sale prices and “pay for three, get four” deals), basing the discount on that phony list price, and quoting a replacement cost that was significantly higher than the original purchase price.
There really needs to be a FAQ for this forum. People seem to think that their questions will be answered by Tom and Ray. Anywho keep in mind that the more a tire is rated for mileage wise, the harder it’s compound is and less it will grip. This is important because in recent years more and more auto makers have been putting high performance tires on otherwise pedestrian cars. They do this so you’ll be more impressed with the car when you test drive and buy it. But these tires tend to wear out faster and should you replace them with a harder compound tire that’s rated for 70k miles, you may not be impressed with the performance.
That’s exactly how it worked at the gas station I worked at many moons ago. I remember only one warranty ‘adjustment’ that actually resulted in the poor buyer saving any money.
I would be good to know what happened with your claim.
I had a simlar problem with tires i bought at sears . they honored the tire warranty.put 4 new tires on.and sent the bad tires back to the manufacator.to get reinbursed.sears is a very reliable tire store when it comes to warranties I HAD 22.000 MILES ON TIRES the tire warranty. i was refuring to was the manfacuator tire warranty/wich was 50.000miles