When to change tires?
 

When do people change their tires? All the way down to wear-bar flat with tread? Based on mm height reading ? Age > 6 years... all of the above?

I've got a set of old Pilot Sport age rainging from 2005,2006 to 2010 on one tire. Some slight cracking on front older tire... Rear left is maybe a mm or two before wear bar, I ordered a an actual tire depth gauge , waiting for arrival ...

thanks,
comet

All of the above. After about 5 years performance tires turn into hockey pucks. No more joy. I run street tires to the wear bars and track tires to the cords.

I tend to replace tires when they get down down to 50% of the original tread depth -- I could go further, but I'm too lazy to adapt my driving habits for the changed tire performance. I don't track the car.

Regards,
paul...

I change mine out at 4/32s now that I live where it rains a lot. When I lived in the desert, they'd go down to 2/32, or sometimes slightly lower. I've never had a tire exceed six years from date of manufacture. Of course, this is with standard production street tires. I've never run racing tires.

All the tires I've purchased start at 10/32s, so we're close in our approach.

Regards,
paul...

I run my Michelins until inner cords show unless it's Oct. which is when the rain starts in SoCA. :)

I've never had any tire last 5 years but if I did, I would replace them at that age.

Otherwise, like Topless I drive street tires to the wear bars and track tires to the cord.

The Pilot Sports on my 2002s were fairly new when I bought the car 2 yrs ago. I only got 12,000 miles out of them. My wife has them on her Acura and she only gets about 20,000 out of a set. The rear tires on the Boxster were pretty much slick by the time I replaced them. I usually do not let tires go that far before replacing them. The front tires were still in good shape with a lot miles left in them so I did not notice how slick the rears were. I replaced tires with the same all around and with Pilot Sport Cup. These tires are like glue on dry pavement, but from what others have said I am apprehensive about driving with them in some of these torrential downpours in Florida. I don't expect these to last very long due to the very thin tread profile and will probably compromise next time and go with the Super Sports.

The bridgestones the Spyder came with surprised me as they are better than I expected. Still, they are wearing faster than Michelins and to my shock cost more than Michelin tires at tire rack. I hope to get at least 12K out of them and when they go, it's Pilot Sports back on my car.

I'm using Pilot Sport A/S Plus tires. Put them on 3 years ago this month and they have 30000 km on them, mainly highway road trips. Although they have loads of tread left, they are definitely not as grippy as they were when new. I'd like to get another season or two out of them if I can.

Replace them preferably just before it develops a crack on the shoulder that causes it to blow up on the highway...

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