Tire wear

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tl01

Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2011
Messages
7
Has anyone had excessive tire wire on their leaf? My husband had worn out the tires on his leaf in 10k miles. He had a commute that had about 6 miles of mildly curvy roads and the rest is straight. He doesn't even get on the freeway. Driving the same roads... Even my Mercedes GL tires lasted way longer. Is this unique to our car or have others had a similar situation.e
 
tl01 said:
Has anyone had excessive tire wire on their leaf? My husband had worn out the tires on his leaf in 10 miles. He had a commute that had about 6 miles of mildly curvy roads and the rest is straight. He doesn't even get on the freeway. Driving the same roads... Even my Mercedes GL tires lasted way longer. Is this unique to our car or have others had a similar situation.

10 miles?!
 
i am guessing you meant 10,000 miles. what is the tire pressure at? if he is driving curvy roads at any speed or any type of road for that matter, you should be running the tire pressure at the max pressure listed ON THE TIRE.

this allows best chance for longest wear. i have nearly 23,000 miles on my LEAF and about half the tread maybe? dont know for sure, but i am hoping these tires last thru my lease which ends in just over 15 months
 
Tires will wear excessively on edges at 36 psi (Nissan recommended pressure). I did not like the road feel and wear pattern at 36 so I tried 40 and then 44 psi. I have at least 50% tread left at 15,000 miles. In my opinion, wet and dry braking and cornering traction are improved at 44 psi (probably because the Leaf is a heavy car for the tire size). The only negative from running the tires at 44 psi is that it is a little easier to spin the front wheels under hard acceleration when the pavement is wet.

I finally rotated mine at about 12,000 miles because the front tires were showing just a bit more wear than the rear tires. It is probably best to rotate them at 7,500 mile intervals.

Gerry
 
Yep, I agree that the pressure affects the wear a bunch. I've been running at 44 PSI, rotating every 7,500 miles and have very even wear. My best estimates is that the earliest I'll need new tires will be next summer around 45,000 miles.
 
I am writing in about my excessive tire wear on my 2014 Leaf. 19,000 miles and the tires are almost bald. There have 2mm in the middle and no tread on the outside at all. I rotated the tires at 6,000 and 13,000 miles. I recently went into the tire store at 19k and they refused to rotate the front tires to the rear because they were so bad! I keep an eye on the tire pressure and have never had tires wear this fast on any of my previous cars! I have owned a dozen cars in my life and usually get about 50 K -60 K out of a set of tires and have never had tires wear like this.

The tire store stated that they see Leafs with excessive wear all of the time and that the wear is normal because the car is "so heavy"

I have a couple of months left on my lease and am not happy at all that I have to purchase some new tires. The Bridgestone Ecopia tires have at least a 50K warranty. Has anyone had any luck getting Bridgestone to pony up for the lousy wear on these tires?
 
garsh said:
Acbaby said:
The Bridgestone Ecopia tires have at least a 50K warranty.
I believe that's only true for the retail tires, not the OEM ones that come with a new car.

Correct. The OEM "Ecrapias" were definitely cheapened on the order of Nissan. The ones I got from Costco were of better quality.

Acbaby, you may want to try Craigslist (or even here) to see if you can get used ones to put on your car for lease return purposes. Just make sure it's a matching set of 4 and that they all have a minimum of 4/32 tread. They don't necessarily have to be Ecopias, just that all 4 of them are the same. If the rears still have 4/32 just get 2 more Ecopias.
 
Yep, we have a 2015 and it's my Wife's car and she has about 13k on her's. Tires are well worn for the mileage though. She will not let me pump them up to 40-44 psi like mine and I'd rather that she have more grip in wet weather than better wear, like mine, which is quite costly.

If you want great wear.. do the 44psi thing at a cool temp or have them put in that gas that doesn't expand with hot and cold.

My ride (Leaf 2012 SL) is firmer, so the wife says, to hers (Leaf 2015 S).

I can't tell, my last car was a 1967 VW bug. It feels like I'm driving a cloud and my ears don't ring when I've got to where I'm going anymore.
 
Acbaby said:
I am writing in about my excessive tire wear on my 2014 Leaf. 19,000 miles and the tires are almost bald. There have 2mm in the middle and no tread on the outside at all. I rotated the tires at 6,000 and 13,000 miles.
This is indicative of underinflated tires. Basically, Nissan's recommendation of 36 PSI is too low, as noted above. Many here, including me, run the tires on their LEAF between 40 and 44 PSI and report even tire wear.
Acbaby said:
I have owned a dozen cars in my life and usually get about 50 K -60 K out of a set of tires and have never had tires wear like this.
I recently rotated the seven-year-old Michelins on my Honda Civic Hybrid for the first time after 55,000 miles. They are still in great shape and I expect to get another 55,000 miles out of them, at least.
Acbaby said:
The tire store stated that they see Leafs with excessive wear all of the time and that the wear is normal because the car is "so heavy"
I agree with the tire store in this case.

FWIW, we're at 31,500 miles on the OEM Ecopias on our MY2011 LEAF and they still have very good tread remaining, even though they have only been rotated twice. I expect to be able to get another 20,000 to 30,000 miles out of these tires. That's nothing when compared to the Honda, but I consider the Honda to be more of the exception than the rule.
 
BTW OEM tires wearing prematurely fast is not limited to the Leaf or the "Ecrapia." I have an Audi A3 whose OEM Continentals were bald after just 25k miles. The OEM Dunlops on my '98 Maxima were also bald after 40k miles.

The auto industry seems to be adopting the same mindset that computer printer makers do towards toner/ink cartridges.
 
My '13S's front tires were basically bald on the outside edge at ~15K, like the OP I've never experienced this with any other car I've owned, and there have been plenty, note I never rotated them up to that point. At 13 months I took it into the dealer but was told alignment would be on my dime since it was after 12 months :( I've never hit any curb or large pot hole so if it was out of alignment it must have been so from the factory. Long story short I paid for the alignment and tire rotation(which they said I had to do because they couldn't do it with the wear on my front tires) cost was ~$100 and they said it was "a little" out of alignment(I was hoping for a lot). A little over 5K later and my front tires(which were the rear ones) still look quite good and I'm not noticing any abnormal outside wear, for sure better than I remember the previous front ones looking after 5K miles. The bald rear ones(just on the outside edge) are still OK and I'm running them all at 45 PSI, I believe they were 38 PSI before that. I'm keeping a close eye on the rears and figure I'll run them until I start to see cords, which I haven't yet and then quickly replace them.
 
Acbaby said:
I am writing in about my excessive tire wear on my 2014 Leaf. 19,000 miles and the tires are almost bald. There have 2mm in the middle and no tread on the outside at all. I rotated the tires at 6,000 and 13,000 miles. I recently went into the tire store at 19k and they refused to rotate the front tires to the rear because they were so bad! I keep an eye on the tire pressure and have never had tires wear this fast on any of my previous cars! I have owned a dozen cars in my life and usually get about 50 K -60 K out of a set of tires and have never had tires wear like this.

The tire store stated that they see Leafs with excessive wear all of the time and that the wear is normal because the car is "so heavy"

I have a couple of months left on my lease and am not happy at all that I have to purchase some new tires. The Bridgestone Ecopia tires have at least a 50K warranty. Has anyone had any luck getting Bridgestone to pony up for the lousy wear on these tires?

34,000 miles 5 mm on all treads OEM tires 2013 LEAF S
 
DuncanCunningham said:
Yep, we have a 2015 and it's my Wife's car and she has about 13k on her's. Tires are well worn for the mileage though. She will not let me pump them up to 40-44 psi like mine and I'd rather that she have more grip in wet weather than better wear, like mine, which is quite costly.

If you want great wear.. do the 44psi thing at a cool temp or have them put in that gas that doesn't expand with hot and cold.

My ride (Leaf 2012 SL) is firmer, so the wife says, to hers (Leaf 2015 S).

I can't tell, my last car was a 1967 VW bug. It feels like I'm driving a cloud and my ears don't ring when I've got to where I'm going anymore.


or have them put in that gas that doesn't expand with hot and cold.

say what?
 
I'm guessing he's talking about Nitrogen which still expands and contracts with heat but apparently has larger molecules that aren't so prone to leaking through small holes. I hadn't heard about it having a different expansion/contraction rate than regular air, but I could be wrong....
 
jjeff said:
I'm guessing he's talking about Nitrogen which still expands and contracts with heat but apparently has larger molecules that aren't so prone to leaking through small holes. I hadn't heard about it having a different expansion/contraction rate than regular air, but I could be wrong....

omg... is marketing really that effective? There is little doubt in my mind that a continuance of fossil fuel based transportation will lead us to where some of us will have to "buy air" but I hope our efforts will delay that day indefinitely.


while we are at it, let me say that if you are not inflating tires to 44 PSI (or whatever the max pressure on the sidewall is) then no need to post here because you have answered your own question.

now we can get into quite an active discussion over ride comfort, safety, etc but it all boils down to the degree of support for your local tire dealer.

the other concept concerning over pressure will somehow balloon your tires to a rounded edge is also overblown.
 
RonDawg said:
Correct. The OEM "Ecrapias" were definitely cheapened on the order of Nissan. The ones I got from Costco were of better quality.

That isn't what I observed. On the 2011 LEAF, I got 45k miles from the OEM tires. Now yes, probably about 42K miles and 3K desperately needing to be replaced but legal. I kept waiting in case I would get a nail in a tire.

Ordered a new set of Ecopia tires from Tire Rack, and yes not just after but within a year got a nail in one. But I also found out Tire Rack is great with their Road Hazard Warranty, I filed the claim and quickly got the check (maximum $25) which covered almost everything but the tax.

Now the 2005 and 2006 Prius OEM tires, Goodyear Integrity, that's a different story.
 
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