Jeff Ostroff

Hi all, I had a flat on my right rear tire today on my 2012 Mercedes Benz E350 W212. When I pulled over and changed out the tire with the spare, I was shocked to discover the worst uneven wear I had ever seen on a tire. See photos below.

So I'm going to buy 2 new rear tires. The current tires on there are Continental 265/35 R18 V97 Extraload. These are not run flat tires as far as I know. Don't know what the V97 or Extraload means.
Anyway, no store carries my size I have to special order, so does anyone have good experience to share or bad tires to avoid, and which tires I should get?

My other question is with my older cars, we used to rotate tires from rear to front, etc, but you cannot on this car because tires are different sized on front and rear, so how do that rotate the tires, or do they not bother anymore? Also if I get rear tires do I need to perform and alignment?






Also why the uneven wear when the car was driving straight as an arrow?

GuestFromTampa

Is your car is lowered?
If so then Google "negative camber wear" and get an alignment in a decent place
If it is not lowered then just do an alignment.
http://www.apexalignment.com/ would be your best choice if you are in FLL

PS needless to say that you need new rear tires

homeofstone

Alignment can be off which causes tires to wear unevenly. A vehicle can drive straight and handle ok but be out of alignment specs and eat tires up quickly. Not all shops have the equipment to do a complete alignment on Mercedes cars. Make sure the shop is experienced in alignment of Mercedes. I always get my Mercedes aligned at the dealer.

Peachy

Even on the side where you have "more" tread, you are passed the tire wear bars. These should've been replaced much earlier. As for why your wheels are different sizes, this is known as a staggered set up. Your car is rear wheel drive, so the rears have wider wheels for better traction when accelerating. And yes, you definitely need to get alignment, that will solve the uneven tire wear, assuming it's done correctly.

aquinob

That type of damage didn't occur overnight. You need to pay closer attention to the car, besides putting gas in it. Get the car aligned once you put the new rubber on it. Don't just take it to any place, find a garage that knows MB, their alignment specs are not the norm. Conti's and Michelins are probably the best bets, not cheap either, but can go for quite a few miles with proper maintenance.

You have a staggered setup, most likely 18" rims. You can't rotate front to back, only side to side and only if the tires are bidirectional. Check with the place that sells them. Some tires are designed to only rotate in one direction so those will never be rotated on a staggered setup. If you want to get away from that, you will need to find some different rims. I have a set of essentially brand new 17" take offs that I will use once my current set of tires (conti) wears out, but they still have plenty of tread left after 30K miles.

These cars don't take kindly to deferred maintenance. Toyotas and Hondas can be run into the ground and will still keep going. Not so with German cars. You have to stay on top of them or deal with the problems.

rediesel

Love that color. Is it Lunar Blue?

OK. So the 97V is the load rating (97 =1609 lbs.) and the speed rating (V = 149 MPH). Extra Load means that the tire reaches maximum load at higher PSI (41 vs a standard load in the mid 30's.)

These cars are designed to have negative camber which wears the inside more than the outside. I'm not sure how much this can be adjusted. There are bolt kits available to take some out.

Your tires are shot across the tread. Well into the wear bars on the outside as well, Once the tire wears thru the tread it quickly wears into the belts.

Bottom line you need tires and a 4 wheel alignment.

Mud

It almost looks like the inside of that tire was slightly rubbing on something in addition to the wear from negative camber. Be glad it didn't blow out at highway speeds. I'll echo the comments about checking things frequently on these and any car actually.
Tire Rack has lots of reviews. I've used it to help narrow down choices. On sedans my preference and current tire is Continental PureContact. They perform and last well enough for me.

homeofstone

To OP. If this is your first Mercedes be aware that the maintenance and service required on a Mercedes will be much more expensive than a Chevy, Honda, Ford , Toyota, etc. And as stated above, if maint. or serv. is delayed it will only cost a lot more in the long run. A Mercedes can last many years and a lot of miles but they do require some expensive service from time to time.

thefisch

+1 Most of the shops around me won't touch a MB for alignment. Fortunately the dealers have special from time to time.

+1 That kind of wear is easy to spot from the rear. Always check mine every 4-6 weeks when I am checking tire pressure, oil and other fluids.

KEY08

wow, that is a sad looking tire. You've received lots of great advice, and I'm shocked you weren't skidding everywhere in the lightest of rain.

cetialpha5

I take mine to Goodyear. They have a 3 year warranty alignment for around $179 but I've used a $25 coupon with it in the past. I go every 6 months or so. The potholes around here knock them out all the time. As someone mentioned earlier they basically only adjust toe, camber isn't really adjustable on these cars and that's basically how it's set up at the factory. That wear could also indicate worn suspension components like control arms. There's a few other chains that do 3-5 year or lifetime alignments like Firestone or NTB.

How many miles did you have on the tires? Usually with a staggered set up, you only get half the tread wear life out of it so if it were a 30k tire, you'd expect to get 15k out of it. If you have the same tires up front, I'd just match the tread and get the same tires. Here's one place that has them cheap, I'd just use them to have the local tire store price match. Many of them do.

Jeff Ostroff

Thanks for the input everyone, I ordered tires today after reading numerous reviews. So I bought this Lunar Blue 2014 E350 last March as a 3 year old used car. with about 48,000 miles on it. Very hard to find it in Lunar Blue in my area at the time, you could get gray, white black all day long. I have put on maybe 6,000 miles since then.

But one interesting thing happened last September, that same tire which blew out yesterday got a nail in it and tripped the TPMS alarm and it showed 20 PSI. So I added more air into it and it solved the problem until I can get around to an oil change..For about a month all was fine or so I though then it came back again and deflated back to 20 PSI, but I still had every intention of getting it fixed with an upcoming oil change. Maybe cycling through this every two weeks for the past couple months caused it. I saw the tread was getting low, but I swear from the outside of the tire the tread looks good enough to drive for months. It was simply on my upcoming to dos for the car in the next couple of months.

I did not notice it was bald until I reached around to pull the tire off to change it after the flat and felt the bald inside shoulder of the tire and felt the belts sticking through. I tell you that you cannot tell this tire was bald at all from the outside. I will definitely use your advice TheFisch, and start checking the tires from behind.and reaching around with my hand and using the tire tread gauge from now on, don't want a repeat performance.

So here's my solution:

Nobody has tires to fit my car in stock, so after checking Tire Rack, and other on-line sites like BJs and Sam's Club and Costco, I went with costco who had the best price so far, I have usually bought all my tires from Sam's or Costco, whoever has the $70 off coupon for 4 tires that I need at the moment.

FRONT TIRES:

Michelin PILOT SPORT A/S 3+ 245/40R18 97V BSW ULTRA HIGH PERFORMANCE $ 184.99 Each

REAR Tires:PILOT SPORT A/S 3+ 265/35ZR18 $217.99 Each

Installation and TMPS service will total $15 per tire. This was way cheaper than Mercedes dealer who wanted $350 per tire installed.
Also, Costco give us free rotation, balancing, tire checks, and flat repair for the life of the tire, plus they use Nitrogen and put on new valve stems all for that $15 tire install fee, and it includes roadside hazard warranty on the tires. So I purchased these 4 new tires and will sell the Contis from the front of the car when they are removed by Costco to make way for my new Micheleins.

I plan to get a full alignment after the tires are installed, maybe at Tires Plus who charges $89, or maybe at the dealer, not sure how much they will charge, anyone here know what most Mercedes dealers charge for it?

cetialpha5

Those should be good tires. I got mine there earlier, but they were just the 245/40/18 which is the square setup for a 4matic. Mine were Z though. Not sure why you mixed a V and a Z tire. Should have just gotten the Z. I was debating whether to go with V or Z, but V is only good for 149 and I believe Z is 149+, the car is speed limited to 155. Lots of times they won't even install them if the tires have a lower speed limit rating than the car. You missed the 1 cent installation sale they had earlier, they usually do that a couple times a year but of course you can't wait for a sale in your situation.

The dealer is typically $150-$250 for a single alignment. That's why you'll probably at least break even or be ahead if you get an alignment warranty like Goodyear, basically the cost of 2 alignments, but you could go 3-6 times in that 3 year period.

aquinob

I currently have the 18" staggered setup. When I bought the car it had about 29K on the clock and I made the dealer put new rubber on it all around as part of the deal. Car currently has about 65K on it and tires still have some decent tread left. So even if I leave them go till 70k, that's over 40k miles, and I think I rotated them side to side just once. Tires were ContiProContact with a 400 treadwear rating. Hope your new ones wear just as well.

Johnny Rad

thefisch

When the subject of alignments comes up, I always forget out those of you who live in areas with an abundance of potholes and other hazards. I've been lucky and have not had wear issues over the course of several sets of tires on different cars over the years. Usually I just get an alignment when I replace a set of tires, but I have skipped it before and not had an issue on the subsequent set.

Jeff Ostroff

Well the tire ordeal is finally over, I have good news to report along with some tragedy. First of all thanks to cetialpha5 who reminded me of the 1 cent installation sale at Costco, so I went back to look at it after I placed my online order on Feb 2. My order of tires arrived 2/7 and Costco was running the 1 cent sale for installation of 4 tires from 2/8 to 2/12. But, Costco screwed up my order and only sent the 2 front tires but not the rears. So I was going to miss out on that window of opportunity. I called Costco corporate and after and hour on the phone they assured me my other 2 tires would ship out the next day and they arrived on 2/14 almost 2 weeks after this whole thing starts plus I'm still on my spare tire.

So they called me in, and I demanded they remove the install fees for the trouble they caused me even though we were now outside the window for that deal. They refunded me the $60 tire installation fee! The tires are great and they appear to be quieter than the Continentals which they replaced. I kept my 2 front tires because they have 6/32 left on them, and i will sell them on Craigslist. The ordeal is now over, that was the good news.

The tragedy is I live 3 miles from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL where the shooting took place last week, it all unfolded while I was at Costco 4 miles from the school eating in the snack bar with my laptop waiting for them to install my tires. One of my daughter's friends from piano lessons was one of the 17 victims killed in the shooting. We are going to her funeral Tuesday.

Suddenly my phone lit up with text messages from friends listening in on police scanners and my wife told me she is locked in the cafeteria of our school 2 miles away because they put all schools on lockdown. I sat there watching it live on TV news web sites on my laptop computer and people were crowded around me at the snack bar there, watching this all unfold live. Very sad ending to what should have been a perfect Valentines Day. At least the car is well and I'm happy with my new tires.

95viper

95viper

Arrie

Your tire has run severely underinflated. It has worn out on both edges. Inner edge more as these cars wear inner edge on the rear tires slightly more than outer edge and this difference multiplies if the tire does not have enough air pressure.

Use high enough pressure, which for rear in my opinion is 35 psi as a minimum but 37 psi - 38 psi is better. DO NOT trust the tire pressure sticker on the car. Look at your tires as only the tire will tell how it works. Very easy with a tire thread gauge to inspect thread depth at edges and middle every so often.

You probably do not need alignment, just proper air pressure in the tires but if after running with tires well inflated you see more wear at inner edge it may be time for alignment.

I have originally staggered setup but I have 245/40-R18 tires front and back and use 37 psi all around. Works well and I see less pressure increase while driving compared to 35 psi that I used before. Tells me the tires heat up less with higher pressure, which makes sense.

LemonSqueezy

I was just about to say the same thing and it really looks like an inflation issue. Underinflated means inner and outer tire will wear out faster, if you over inflate, the center tends to wear out faster. Definitely get an alignment after new rubber but I don't think that's the source of your problem. Camber tends to wear out either inner or outer, but not both. Pos camber wears outer, neg camber wears inner tire.

ILIJA

Right here, so I went to my MB dealer to get an alignment for my 2011 C300 and 2011 E350 yesterday. Turns out that neither of my two vehicles could get the proper Front Camber specs adjusted because they don't have adjustable bolts. My Service advisor told me for $250 they'll put the new bolts in lol. Anyway, my inside tires wear out on both of my vehicles. Here are some pictures of my old E-Class tires after 45,000 miles.

ILIJA

Where did you purchase the camber bolts for your E350?

kajtek1

MB does negative chamber for decades. I figure out that in Europe, where drivers do corners at high speeds, the wear out is getting even due to that, but in US where people just roll on intersections, the negative chamber will cost inner sides to go faster. '
That besides that OP seems to have inner rubbing that cut the side.
Coming to suspension adjustment, it gets tricky with new cars, that don't have adjustable bolts from the factory and you have to add them when needed.
I don't go to stealers very often, but last time took my W211 for adjustment, they hold the car for 3 days total as I had to take it back when first time they gave me car back with 8 measurements in red. (they hold the car till almost close time, so I had to take it at the time)
So when you call SA for the appointment, ask him if they have the bolts in stock in case they need them and don't buy the BS that they cant' adjust it.

PLINYELDER