Rapid and premature tyre wear

Posted by: Officer DBL on 05 February 2010

During the recent arctic weather my wife was complaining about lack of traction when trying to get out of a friend’s fairly steep driveway. Out of curiosity I checked her tyres and the rear ones were almost bald. OK, so this explained the traction problems but not the fact that these were a pair of Continental tyres fitted in April 2009 and had only been in use for 6,000 miles. The wear was even across the width of both tyres and am sure that my wife has not been engaging in rubber burning handbrake turns.

I spoke to the tyre place about it, and they confirmed that it was strange that the tyres were more than worn out at such a low mileage, so they sent them to Continental UK to be checked out.

A letter from Continental arrived yesterday telling me that the material of the tyres was up to manufacturing specifications, followed by a standard paragraph about driving style, tyre set up etc, and a final paragraph in which they said they would not honouring the claim – and did I want the tyres back?

This is all very well, but what I have taken to be a bog standard response letter did not address the key issue we had – the tyres had totally worn out in just 6000 miles in normal use on normal roads in normal conditions.

I spoke to the tyre place this morning and they had the local Continental Rep in residence. He was unable to make any sense of the letter and neither could he find any reasons provided for the rapid premature wear – even though the first sentence in the letter said the letter would explain what was wrong with the tyres – proof I guess of a bog standard customer response letter.

The Continental Rep has referred the letter to the tyre surveyors boss to ask what is going on, so I should hear shortly if there is a more sensible response from a more senior person.

Whilst it would be nice for Continental to refund the cost of the replacement tyres, what I was actually hoping for was and explanation of the swift wear. You would have thought that Continental would have been concerned about that too, but there you go.

Has anyone had any similar experiences?
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by nap-ster
If the rear ones had gone then I take it that it's a rear wheel drive?
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by Officer DBL
It is, and I know that places more wear on the tyres. Were it a rally car going off road, fair enough, but it is a Merc C160 which is hardly boy (or girl) racer material.
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by Bruce Woodhouse
Were these fitted from new? If not, how many miles did you get out of the last lot?

With both wearing evenly and equally it does not sound like a geometry fault so it was either a pair of faulty tyres or the car/driver is just heavy on them. Have you talked to the dealer what they'd expect from a set?

Maybe when you are not looking she is doing burnouts down the High Street.

I recall wearing out the front pair of Contis on my Audi A4 pretty quickly although I'm not sure it wasn't more like 10k; and it was a more powerful thing than the Merc.

Bruce
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by Officer DBL
Hi Bruce,

They were a new set and the previous set had lasted about 18,000 miles. The dealer said that their expectation of the tyres was between 15 and 18k, so they were surprised with the speed of wear. The geometry was checked and found to be fine.

The car is up to about 57,000 miles and until the current pair had been through 3 sets of tyres, so proving I guess that my wife's normal driving style does allow a set of tyres to have a decent lifespan.

I get about 15k out of my rear tyres on my 530i and that is putting far more power through the rear wheels than the C160.

Maybe as you say, she is doing burnouts in her spare time and has a heavy right foot when I am not around.

Brad
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by Bruce Woodhouse
Brad

Does sound very odd if other pairs have lasted so well. I'd be 'steering clear' of that particular tyre in future, although perhaps more model specific than brand specific.


Bruce
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by BigH47
You haven't had the car in the garage have you? I have heard of tyres being swapped over. We got a hire car back once, some one had swapped spare wheels over.
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by Lontano
Years ago I went through a set of 4 Continentals on my Audi in 14k miles. I was most disappointed with them and such a low mileage- low profile tyres.

My current 5 series has done 19k and no sign of imminent replacement of rears - Good Years. I have a pretty heavy right foot Winker
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by Tony Lockhart
I can't afford tyres at that rate (15-18k miles) let alone the cars!

Tony
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by u5227470736789439
On a Volvo 240 [21 years old on 1st of March] I had a new set of Michelin Energy tyres fitted when I first bought the car. These lasted 55K on the front, and 60K on the back. The Volvo is a heavy car with ponderous - potentially very hard on tyres - cornering characteristics.

Currently I have Firestones on the front and these are wearing very nicely. Hardly any sign of wear after three years and about 12K miles. These days though I would be unlucky if I put more than perhaps a thousand miles a year on it. I have not used it for three weeks!

Perhaps new car chassis design is not all it is cracked up to be.

ATB from George
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by Mike Dudley
Yeah, I used to use some Continental "Mountain Kings" over the summer, but at the first sign of wet weather they were feck all use on slipperry roots and even slightly rocky descents didn't....

Er, oh.
Posted on: 05 February 2010 by fixedwheel
Mike, get your coat. 26" talk not allowed in this thread.... Big Grin

John
Posted on: 07 February 2010 by Gary S.
Brad

That's pretty appauling performance for a set of tyres. I used to own a Rover 620Ti which was rediculously heavy on tyres (200bhp front wheel drive, heavy old Rover engine etc), but even red-lining the engine every time I pulled away (it had to be done, it was so much fun Winker) I still used to get about 6000 miles out of the fronts. These days I drive a TDCi Mondeo and only use Mitchelins and get 35000 plus out of a set of tyres.

The response from Continental was only to be expected - my advice, just post this story on as many web sites as you can, you've certainly convinced me never to try a set of Continetals, they're loss in the long run.

Gary
Posted on: 07 February 2010 by BigH47
If you have no joy via the Continental rep,I would certainly send the information to as many places as possible, BBC watchdog type shows, consumer groups, post on car websites etc and cc every one to Continental.

As you have used their tyres before and can show that normally you get 3 times better wear, I think they should do more , I know you can't prove your lady's driving hasn't changed, but even so.
Posted on: 07 February 2010 by Voltaire
quote:
Originally posted by BigH47:
You haven't had the car in the garage have you? I have heard of tyres being swapped over. We got a hire car back once, some one had swapped spare wheels over.


I can confirm that this does indeed go on.
Posted on: 07 February 2010 by Officer DBL
I can discount the illicit tyre swap as the car hasn't been into a garage in the time the defective tyres were fitted.

I'll see what Continental say the second time before I go out to a wider audience.

Brad
Posted on: 08 February 2010 by Guinnless
Were the tyres worn evenly?

Might be worth getting the alignment checked at a dealer, if it's OK then this could count in your favour.

I got 19,000 out of a pair of Michelin Pilots on the rear of my Sierra Cosworth!

Cheers
Steve
Posted on: 08 February 2010 by Officer DBL
Hi Steve,

The wear was even, and the garage checked the alignment and it was fine.

Cheers

Brad

I remember years ago when I took delivery of an Escort RS Turbo, another guy picked up a Sierra Cosworth. Whereas I left the garage forcourt very carefully with my new charriot, he managed to leave with lots of screeching and smoke.

He was back in the garage at the same time as me to have the running in check and he was giving off about the handling.

The garage explained to him that they could only legally test the car up to the national speed limit, so were in a spot about checking his car out for instability at higher speeds. They asked him if there was anything at all he had done to the car that may have caused the problem. He scratched his head,thought about it for a while then pointed out the window at his car and said, "Well, I thought that rear spoiler thing was ugly so I took it off."
Posted on: 08 February 2010 by Staedtler
Just out of interest, were the new tyres exactly the same spec as the last ones? You can get different compounds and load ratings for the same make and model of tyre, if you got some softer compound ones, that could account for the increased wear rate.
Posted on: 08 February 2010 by Tarquin Maynard - Portly
Bear in mind the recent snow caused a LOT of wheelspinning...
Posted on: 08 February 2010 by BigH47
quote:
Originally posted by Mike Lacey:
Bear in mind the recent snow caused a LOT of wheelspinning...


Not at both ends unless it a 4WD car.

As a sort of follow up to the tyre changing at a garage thing.
We all got to work today to find , one of our cars with it's front smashed , someone had punted it out of the way to access the covers and pipes for the diesel tanks. Levered off the covers smashed off the pipe covers and padlocks , and made off with 3,000 litres of diesel.
We watched on CCTV , it happened 19:00 ish Saturday. Lost count off the number of cars that passed by.