i have a friend who has some lightly used t1r's he's gonna give to me. he has the whole set that he says is at about 80% but one of the rear tires which he had to replace is new.

is it really bad to have slightly different tread life on the rear tires?

 

If you don't have the LSD (limited slip differential) in the back, then it is nothing to worry about because the back rear wheel is the main drive wheel. If you do have the LSD, then that might be something to look into.

 

The right rear wears out faster than the left rear due to the way the differential applies the engine torque. Supposedly that's true to a degree even on cars with LSD. If you have non-directional tires like the OEM tires (and many good replacement choices) you can simply rotate the rears at approx half-tread life. You don't have to take them off the rims, just swap the right and left rears. I use the Sumitomo HTRZIIIs and I get about 8K miles out of them, rotated at about 4K miles. Beats the 4K miles total I got from the OEM Pirellis. One of the other forum guys just put Yokohama Envigors on his car with a treadwear rating of 500+. I am very curious to see how he likes them, since that could be a really good choice for us guys who use the car as daily driver. I do about 24K miles per year, and the rear tire wear on this car is not only expensive but annoying.

 

im the guy (or at least one of them) with the Yoko Envigors. love them! dont mean to highjack... so to answer the OP id put them on... but the best one on the passenger rear and run that baby!

back to the Envigors... not as sticky which you would have guessed.. but for spirited saturday night runs on the interstate and around town to dinner and clubs they work and they work well! NO signs of wear after 2.5k miles on them. the fronts (OEM Pzeros) are showing about half of their life being gone after a total of 6.5k miles. my OEM rears lasted 4k with them showing wear to the wear bars.

next year when the fronts are worn i will buy Envigors for the front and see what i have to do to rotate the rears. if my memory is correct they are directional so they will have to be dismounted and remounted. no biggie if you are already at the tire store. i got mine at tirediscounters. great service as they cleaned all the brake dust from inside my wheels (front and rear) and let me stand back with them to watch and talk about my baby. i hate when places take your car and make you sit out front with all the camry drivers!

@Palladin - i doubt the Yoks will be as sticky as your Sumis but seriously if you put that kind of mileage on your AMG you need something like im running. i havent changed my driving style one bit and im happy with them. wet traction will blow your mind. plus i drive a few months in below zero temps and they should be much better than those hockey puck summer only tires. at your rate you change tires 3x per year. i bet you could get an entire year out of the Yoks but time will tell. the problem is i only put about 6k per year on mine so it will be a few years before i can tell you how long the Yoks last. so far it looks good for at least 12k or more is my guess.

 

Thanks for the info Lex. I like to have all four tires match, so next time I have to replace all four (instead of just the rears) I will probably try the Yokos. If your opinion changes please post an update.

 

so, put the new tire on the rear passenger side. this is still the case with lsd?