michail71

So what has the experience been on tire wear? My car has 23,000 miles on it now, 2,000 from me. My rear tires look almost new with deep even tread. I can even see some of the white printing below the tread line. My fronts however are getting a little worn looking.

I was under the assumption that RWD cars wear out the back tires more quickly.

Carsy

My rears wear more quickly that the fronts. They actually wear on the inside shoulder since the car was new which is annoying & even with rotation I cannot obtain even wear. The camber angle is within limits. We have moved from steep rough gravel rural roads to the more sedate built up areas so the inside wear may lessen.

I am a sedate driver. Maybe the car is designed to be thrown around more which would negate the negative camber wear.

It is possible the previous owner rotated your tyres or it suited them to use tyres from another vehicle ?.

If you have the impractical staggered set up some of this will not count .

michail71

Yes, I am staggered. I think all non 4matic C250s have the staggered setup.

My rears look good enough to be new but the front were worn enough to get a warning from the dealer that they are getting near replacement.

Although the previous owner had hit something and the alignment might be slightly off. I think the wear is even with a touch more on the outside. I have bent rims on the right side of the car which I'm trying to get repaired.

chazzz

Normally, the rear tires wear out quickly than the front. I think the best way is to get a set of four new tires for your car. After 15k or 20k miles, you will see the rear tires are worn out and the front tires threads will be about 50% left. Then get a pair of tires for the rear only. 15k-20k miles later, you will have all four tires worn out at the same time. That is what I would do with my car.

Alfadude

Maybe the previous owner had replaced the rear tires shortly before you purchased it.

michail71

I thought of that but they don't look quite that new. Plus it was a leased vehicle. I don't think someone would put new tires on just before the lease was up.

From what I remember looking up on the tires they are warrantied to 40,000 miles on staggered setups.

Funkwagen

Even the 4matic sport trim C250s are staggered. I know, it seems weird doesn't it?

edgalang

Not true. You will be charged a maintenance fee from the dealer if you give the car back on bald tires. The previous owner most likely replaced the tires from a cheaper source.

jahquan3

Although a different model, I have RWD as well. I noticed the wear on the rear was worst then the front when I purchased the car before the middle of last year. I've since replaced all 4 with Yokohoma Advan Sport A/S and have put over 10k miles on them. So far the wear has not really shown on the front or the back. I'm sure it will in the next 10k miles though.

michail71

That is a possibility I thought of. They are all Continental ContiProContact which seem to be the ones I see on all the C-Series cars.

vipsa

Get the numbers from the sidewalls on the rear tires and compare the manufacture dates to the fronts:
Hot to find tire age

Also, on average my c350 will go through 3 sets of 540 thread wear rears before the fronts need replacement. That is also with my wife driving.

michail71

Thank you, it's at the dealer now so I will do that when I get the car back.

edgalang

Best advice on this thread.

michail71

How is the grip compared to OEM? I'm not sure if I'll stick with the OEM when it comes time and may go to a summer tire. I live in Florida so it's rarely below 80 F most of the year.

edgalang

Financial reasons aside, unless you are going to drive in sub 40F weather, there is no reason for you to NOT be driving on summer tires.

I'm currently on Michelin PSS and compared to stock, I'll never go back.

michail71

I'd love to see some sub 40F weather. We haven't had a winter here in about 6 years that I can remember.

Those run about $611 for a set of 4. Not too bad, despite the warranty and 300 treadwear rating people seem to be getting good tread life.

michail71

I have the car back and was able to check. The front tires are from 2012 and the rear tires are from 2015. I would guess they must have been replaced around 15-18K miles.

TheRulesLawyer

Staggered tires are a luxury vs sport model thing, not a 4 matic thing. If I lived in florida I'd run summers all year for sure.

michail71

LOL, I'd so love some sub 40F weather. I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago and it was nice to feel some crisp air.

I fugure in about a year I'll be ready for new tires.

jahquan3

The grip is great I'd say better than the Pirellis that were on it before I changed. I'm in Northern Jersey so summer tires are not very common up here and even if I got them I'd only be able to use them for a small portion of the year.

IGB

Consider this: you say the fronts are so worn out that they warranted a warning from the dealer... Therefore, and due to the fact that the rears always wear out faster than fronts, then the rears were in much worse shape shortly prior to the previous leasee's turning it in, and accordingly, he had replaced them shortly prior to returning it.

Tire warranties do not cover wear and tear, and are actually voided by way of uneven wear... Nor do they cover road hazards (which is the primary cause for tire failure). So from a realistic standpoint, a tire warranty is worthless when it comes down to it.

Edited to add: most tire warranties require that the tires be rotated. And with the tires that our cars use having unidirectional tread, in addition to being stagerred, they cannot be rotated

K-Mac

WE SAW THE NEED THEREFORE TO MANUFACTURE AND REINSTATE FROM THE EARLY 90’S PRECISELY ADJUSTABLE (SINGLE WRENCH, ON CAR) FRONT CAMBER AND CASTER AND REAR CAMBER (WITH EXTRA TOE) KITS TO SUIT VIRTUALLY EVERY MODEL THROUGH TO 2016! INCLUDING ALSO AMG AND BLACK SERIES.

The K-MAC unique patented design provides up to 4 times the adjustment of these one position fluted bolts. Also with the design breakthrough of eliminating the time consuming need to remove bushings each time a alignment setting needs to be changed.

CAMBER –Allows to actually change the tire contact angle, improving traction/safety with more even tire wear along with ability to reduce understeer or oversteer

CASTER – Resolves steering pull, increases steering response. With better turn in and high speed directional control, along with improved anti dive/lift under brake and acceleration.

Fixing it right the 1st time - no more ongoing trips to dealers or alignment shops or constantly changing tire brands. A result of worn bushes, altering vehicle height, fitting wide profile tires/wheels, load carrying or because of curb knock damage.

ADDED BONUS IS THESE 4 FRONT AND REAR K-MAC ADJUSTABLE BUSHINGS also replace the highest wearing suspension bushings at the same time - with twice the load bearing area of OEM. Yet still 2 axis/self aligning without the use of air voids allowing also improved brake and steering response.

FOR THE REAR SIMILAR KITS – Providing Camber also for the 1st time for more even tire wear/traction. Again these 2 inner lower arm bushings are the highest wearing. Bush extraction tool included allowing bushes to be replaced on car. Rear kit also includes importantly extra Toe adjustment bushes to compensate for the new Camber facility.

NOTE – you can purchase adjustable upper Camber arms for the rear, but difficult to fit, access and to reduce inner edge tire wear unlike K-MAC lower arm bushings – these arms need to adjust top of tire outwards which reduces all important clearance to outer fender.

Front W204 Camber and Caster adjustable bushes $480 #502616K

Rear W204 Camber (and extra Toe) adjustable bushes $480 #502226K

Delivery price for MB World members USA/Canada is $30 one kit or $40 front and rear.

Payment can be made by PayPal, Visa, or MasterCard.

See link for latest 2016 catalog http://K-mac.com.mercedes/

michail71

The fronts aren't really that worn out considering they are original. I was surprised the dealer mentioned it. They should make it about a year longer.

The only reason I had mentioned the tire manufacturer warranty was to get a good idea of what the tread ware would be.

95Sinned420

Tire warranties do cover wear and tear
Case in point, my Michelin Pilot Sport A/S had 45k mile warranty. I rotated them at the tire shop I got them from (America's Tire Co) every 6k miles. A year later, they would not rotate them for me anymore, saying the tires have worn down below the minimum, for safety issues. A year later, with 36k miles on the tires (I drive a whole lot).

Now, the tire wear was noticeably worse on the outer edges, so it was not necessarily even wear. BUT it wasn't so bad that it was considered uneven wear. They warrantied the tires and gave me ~$113 off a new set.

As for having summer tires? Keep in mind, those wear down a lot quicker.

IGB

For starters, an according to Michelin's website, and while they have made an "Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus", as well as an "A/S 3" and an "A/S 3 Plus" but not a "A/S" by itself... The reason I point this out is there is no way to look up to see what sort of warranty those tires came with, and accordingly, no way to determine how much %-wise, 36k miles works out to be out of the warrantied tread-life.

Admittedly, I left out the word "normal" when I made my statement. And instead, I should have stated "manufacturer's warranties do not cover normal wear and tear". Because whether you care to admit it or not, normal driving does not lead to wearing out a set of tires at what might be close to 80% of tread life. If it did, the Michelin along with all other tire manufacturers (and n spite of the HUGE mark up on some tires) would have gone out of business long ago.

You would have to be quite the "spirited driver" to wear them out so quick. More so if they were regularly rotated.

But that is only one part of your story that does not jive with this particular discussion. The other part is, and assuming your profile here is accurate, the huge difference between a Luxury C-Class and a Sport C-Class, in that on your Luxury model, and since all 4 tires are the same size, you are able to rotate every 6,000 to 8000 miles as per manufacturer's requirement, whereas for the Sport models, and assuming one stays with the staggered set up that it comes with from factory, they cannot be rotated.

The OP drives a Sport model W204. He's already stated he has a staggered setup... Which as a result of the fact they cannot be rotated, they are not covered under Michelin's normal tread-life warranty.

If we were to review the most basic documents regarding a Michelin Warranty, for example: Michelin's General Guide on tire warranties, we will find the following:
And all of a sudden, the advertised 45,000 mile warranty period offered on a Michelin tire designed to fit MB's W204 Sport C-class model vehicles has been slashed in half, to 22,500 miles....

But even in your case, uneven wear (often considered a clear sign of an out of a vehicle suffering from out of alignment issues) is also an exclusion to the tread life warranty. And to suggest that your "uneven wear was noticeable" and yet ATC decided to still offer you a prorated exchange, would leave little doubt in my mind that there were other elements that could have influenced ATC's management to offer you a sort of compromise in offering a discount on a new set.

I say this knowing full well, that up until very recently, ATC had offered quite the liberal exchange policy, as proven by the over $700 worth of free merchandise I received from them a couple of years ago, due to a simple mistake they made, and one which I did not point to, instead, they discovered on their own.