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Old 12-16-2013, 10:49 PM
 
2 posts, read 4,461 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil2 View Post
At 48,000 0n the 2010 Outback my first repairs coming up will be brake pads. My mechanic at the dealer said they were thin but still good on the last oil change. It should break 50K before I need them and maybe a little longer. My driving is a mix of metro and open highway. Looking at the tires I think they will see 60K. I will then get a set of Michelin all-weathers at Costco. Last time I did this on my old Outback they filled the new Michelins with nitrogen with the green valve caps. Just FYI.
We installed our first set at about 55,000 which I thought was pretty good. 80% of air is nitrogen. It's really not needed on an auto though airliners that travel from sea level to 37,000 ft have some good reasons for their choice. It won't do any harm but it's a PITA to find someone to refill them with nitrogen.
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Old 12-17-2013, 11:24 AM
 
11,550 posts, read 53,023,611 times
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Our 2000 OBW Limited had a set of the Michelins from Costco on it when we bought it. We saw over 60,000 miles on them and would still be driving on them (approx 40% tread life remaining) when one tire was catastrophically destroyed by a large nail and my wife continuing to drive on the unknown to her almost flat tire for a few miles. I've kept the three remaining tires in hopes that someday I may find a used one to match the set which will go onto my 2001 OBW Limited.

We replaced the Michelins with Firestones, and so far are seeing similar tire performance and wear, but we've only put 20,000 miles on the set so far. Time will tell.

I replaced a Conti set on my car with Bridgestones, and they were crap compared to the Firestones. Already had one tire wear out completely at 32,000 miles while the rest of the set is performing OK. Replaced the failed Bridgestone (a discontinued tire series) with a Firestone ... the rest of the Bridgestone set had so little wear on it that the new Firestone is within Subie size specs. Driving both cars for comparison, the Firestones are far better handling dry/wet/icy conditions, track better, and are quieter than the Bridgestones. Not sure why such a dramatic difference between these tires; they are essentially similar mold patterns and from the same manufacturing plant.
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Old 12-17-2013, 07:08 PM
 
Location: Eastern Washington
17,148 posts, read 56,864,778 times
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That's an unusual story Sunsprit, you had just one tire of a set of 4 wear out while the other 3 didn't? I would guess the tire was defective from the get-go, maybe it didn't get cured right.

One of the downsides of AWD is that you really need 4 tires that are the same size for it to work anything like right.

My 87 Toyota gets the "hand-me-down" tires from the 92 Subie, if we end up with one tire ruined like you describe. FWD so it's OK to run "2 pairs" rather than "4 of a kind" tires. Both use 185-70-14 size.
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Old 12-17-2013, 08:31 PM
 
11,550 posts, read 53,023,611 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M3 Mitch View Post
That's an unusual story Sunsprit, you had just one tire of a set of 4 wear out while the other 3 didn't? I would guess the tire was defective from the get-go, maybe it didn't get cured right.

One of the downsides of AWD is that you really need 4 tires that are the same size for it to work anything like right.
The failed tire was a Bridgestone Insignia series, worn uniformly across the entire tread face. Apparently discontinued shortly after I bought the set of 4. the tires were rotated every 6,000 miles and had no unusual wear patterns that might be traced to an alignment problem (and the car tracks straight) on the front or rear.

The tire shop when I brought the car back to show them the one worn out tire immediately tried to sell me a new set of 4 tires, with the one tire warrantied for the short life and advising me that they could no longer get that tire (so they wanted a full set of matched tires). At my insistence, they mounted the same size Firestone to replace the Bridgestone and measured the rolling diameter to be within the Subie specs to match the other 3 tires. Other than the sidewall lettering/graphics, the Firestone looks almost identical to the Bridgestone tire; you'd think it was from the same tread mold. But the Firestone, as noted, appears to be a totally different tire in it's internal construction ... so much better.

Not having been a Firestone fan, I wouldn't have bought their tires. But my wife had previously gone with her car to our best local independent tire store, not knowing that she'd be buying a full set of tires that day and the Michelin prices there were simply out of her budget. The Firestones were much less expensive, and so far ... I'd have to say if they approach the Michelin tire longevity, I'm happy with them. They're noticeably less fatiguing to drive than the Bridgestones, cruising the 75 mph distances we have around this region on cruise control.

I did have a similar single tire failure in a set many years ago (IIRC, circa 1975) on my 1972 BMW 2002, Michelin XAS 165SR13. The first set gave me excellent mileage, the next set was a miserable excuse for a top dollar tire. Michelin was apparently playing games with the rubber compounds and the tire production varied greatly from one batch to the next. For such an expensive tire at the time, they were a huge disappointment, although the dealer did replace my one worn-out tire on a pro-rata mileage guarantee.

Subie is pretty particular about matching the rolling diameter on the manual transmission cars, and we've been caught out twice before where my wife destroyed one tire in a set so we had to replace all 4 (with one replaced under the road hazard warranty). Most of those surviving 50% worn tires make it to our farm utility trailers/equipment, such as the hay rakes or ditcher or spring tooth harrow ... so they're not a total loss, and less expensive than dedicated farm implement tires.
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