Tires always worn at 25-30K---any ideas??

I also do not get anywhere near the mileage that other people talk about. I suspect that is related to local driving conditions - most of my driving is on hilly, winding roads. Type of road surface would also have an impact. Local temperatures are hot for 9 months of the year - I am sure that also adds to tire degradation.

 

I’m afraid there isn’t a mileage warranty. The Toyo Tires Limited Warranty for Original Equipment Passenger and Light Truck Tires (PDF) booklet says on page 1 that “Rapid Treadwear” is not covered: “Original equipment tires are not guaranteed to last a specified number of miles.”

Toyo’s original tires for the Prius may have been designed with priorities other than durability, such as fuel economy, ride quality, and cost. In this thread, it’s said the treadwear grade is only 300. For comparison, new tires of the same size (P195/65 R15) offered today on one website have treadwear grades as high as 860. The grades are linear; as the regulation (49 C.F.R. § 575.104) explains, “For example, a tire graded 150 would wear one and one-half (1½) times as well on the government course as a tire graded 100.”

 

I got the Toyos and these are the first tires I am actually getting the actual wear out of, I got roughly 44k miles on them. In previous cars with my stick (4 cyl toyota matrix), I seemed to burn the tires up pretty fast (got about half to 2/3rds at best!). I heard the way you corner and the speed and also the way you take off has a lot to do with the tire life. I know my Aunt would burn thru brand new tires on her work prius with all the torque the car has in about 10k miles (2nd gen and then 3rd gen), but she did a lot of stop and go traffic in hers. Of course she didn't have to pay to replace them.

 

Alignment and PSI.

Wheels get misaligned easily and often due to: potholes, curbs, speed bumps. If you keep your cars for a LONG time, and since this car has low miles, buy a Lifetime alignment, or whatever long term alignment the tire shop offers. Few places seem to offer lifetime alignment policies now a days. I bought one from Firestone Tire ($120, 6-2010). I just drop the car off once a year for alignment check/adjustment, unless new tires or suspension work, cause me to go in sooner. One of the angels is always slightly out of spec every time. Read the fine print as the lifetime has a specific frequency you can bring it in.

I don't know what Gen4 (2016-2020) are factory preset vs what people are actually running. But if it is like the Gen2 (2004-2009), factory recommended of 35/33, but most people seem to run higher 38/35 or 40/38.

How regularly do you check the PSI? The low tire pressure warning gets triggered too late IMO. Also, seasonal weather changes will effect PSI, so you should be adjusting the tires a least 4x a year.

Lastly, very few people can apply for mileage warranty on tires. The fine print is worded against you to be able to make a claim. Essentialy the car would have to have perfect alignment all the time, b/c the depth differential at multiple points (outside edge, center, inside edge, various positions on the circumference) on the tire can be no greater than a very small amount (say 1/32); essentially the tire will have to have worn out 99.9% evenly. No one will have this, to be able to file a mileage warranty claim, which is prorated.

 

treadwear 300 then assume it's a 30k tire.
treadwear 800 then assume it's an 80k mile tire.

at least that's the way i was always told to read that.

 

I think it's a known fact, that the factory tires installed by the auto manufacturers are of lesser quality? Different rubber compound to save money? They specify what kind of tire they want when taking bids from the tire makers. (According to articles I read on Tire blog websites.)

The Toyo tires that came with my 2016 Prius were the worst ever. However, the Michelins I now have are already showing premature wear at 15,000 miles. Lots of stop & go driving at lower speeds. I doubt if they will last anywhere near the 60K miles, as advertised.

 

Stop and go driving.

When my wife was delivering mail (300 stops 6 days a week) with the '08, it was every year around Thanksgiving a new set of 4 went on. (about 24k). Now our '16v is at 40K, 30K of which was on several serious road trips.and the tires are still good for another 10-20k.

 

I'm with her dad.

Common denominator:
Drivers.

There's a world of difference between being a "safe" driver and being a "good" driver.
Over the years, I have met more than one person who's never been in an accident, and never been yoked by da man for anything.....people who've never even gotten a PARKING ticket who really should not be behind the wheel.
Sometimes people are two-footed drivers....follow too closely....don't pay attention...etc.
Also...if we stipulate that both you and your CFO are thoroughly trained and highly experienced and talented drivers, you may not maintain your cars as thoroughly as "average" drivers like me who HAVE been in an accident and HAVE occasionally fractured a speeding limit.

There's also environmental and civil factors.
What are your roads like?
How is the traffic?
If you're not also "hard on brakes"...presuming that you keep cars over 100,000 miles, then your tire woes might be caused more by things on the other side of the windshield, and your father-in-law might not be 100-percent correct - but I'd keep that in your back pocket for now, especially since we're close to Thanksgiving and we want to keep the babysitters happy....right?
So.
Since you cannot do anything about the roads and traffic, and you probably will not do anything to fundamentally alter your driving technique, I would concentrate on maintenance.

Try clubbing up your tire pressures to OEM specs plus 10-percent and then start checking your tire pressures more often.
Weekly for a month and then monthly should be fine.
OEM pressures are usually found on a sticker on the inside of the driver's door.....and these should not be confused with max sidewall pressures which are found on the tire itself, and I'm presuming that you're rolling stock tires on stock rims since you're doing the kid thing now.

Priuses are not maintenance intensive, but they ARE maintenance SENSITIVE.
If your idea of vehicle maintenance involves a dealer then you should familiarize yourself with the schedule of maintenance for this car.

No.
I'm not talking about the owner's manual, but rather the schedule of maintenance.
2016 Toyota Prius Owners Manual and Warranty - Toyota Owners
It's the PDF allllllll the way on the bottom of the web page called
Warranty and Maintenance Guides

This details what is required to keep your car maintained, which is important if you're more interested in funding YOUR kid's college fund rather than the dealership mechanic's boat payment fund.

For now?
Get into the habit of checking your oil level about once a month.
Really.
If you're younger than 30, then you may never have actually done this before.
Get your father in law to show you how.
They live for that.....

Then?
Check in the maintenance manual or watch more than three YouTube vids on how to really do it correctly....because sometimes we fathers in law don't always know as much as we think we do!


Good Luck!

 

You can control the TPMS warning level by temporarily increasing your tire pressures when you reset it. For example if you want the warning to come on 5 psi higher than it currently does then you would increase your tire pressures 5 psi above what you normally run them at, reset TPMS, then lower your tire pressures back to where they were.

But yes you should still check your tire pressures regularly.

 

IMHO, 25-30K from OEM RRL tires are not that bad. That's what I got out of my 2015 Gen3 Prius with Bridgestone Ecopia E20, and is what I expect to get out my 2017 PRIME with Dunlop Enasave 01 A/S. I rarely get more than 50K or 5 years with ANY tires I've purchased. I think you are correct that the terrain and also road condition have a big effect on tire longevity. Our rural roads with chip seal asphalt surface seems to grind new tires much faster than when we lived in a city with decent road maintenance.

And regarding to the tread warranty, no OEM tires comes with mileage warranty. Even with aftermarket tires with very high tread warranty, they are not very useful when you have to replace them after a few years. Read the fine prints. They are usually prorated against MSRP of the same exact tire. You are unhappy with the tire, would you want to replace them with the same exact tires with very small portion of discount taken off from MSRP of that tires? Some tire shops will give you discount on prematurely worn tires with high mile warranty if you are purchasing a new set of tires, even different brand or models, from them, but most of times, you can get better price if you have time to look around for sales and other discounts.

 

I was going to say exactly as above....
With almost any OEM tire I have ever owned, 25-30,000 miles is about all I have expected. Decades ago, I could expect even far less. I had some OEM tires that were pretty unacceptable...brand new.

There seems to be some move to improvement, in so much as 25-30K can now be expected. If I remember right, I had Goodyear Assurance tires OEM on my 2013 Prius, and they actually were pretty good. I was impressed with them, especially by OEM standards.

I've got Firestone OEM on my Honda Fit...and I think I'll be lucky to get one more year out of them, and that 30,000 ish..mileage. And I'm not upset, that's pretty much what I expect.

Investment into more expensive tires, and I do bump my expectations up. I've bought upper end Michelins and never been disappointed .

 

Or urban myth? Not sure.

Our original tires were Michelin Pilot hx MXM4, finally replacing them. At 78K kms they still have around 6/32" tread depth, but they're aging out, nearing 10 years old from the manufacture date.

They don't look pretty:

215/45/17 my Michelin premier review | PriusChat

And this was a year back...

 

Yes.
All that is true to varying degrees.

Except for premium luxury models, OEM tires are not known for longevity.
And if you replace them with the same kind, then subsequent sets won't have good wear either.

Pressure, alignment and rotation all play into the picture.
The OP mentioned none of those things.

 

I have been using the 303 protectant on my tires and have gotten over 100K miles on them without having to replace them. This stuff does work but you have to coat them every 3 months religiously. I can attest that it does extend tire life. The car that I did that with was a 1991 Honda CRX HF. I now do that with my 2018 Prius 4. Buy the 1 gallon container. It is cheaper and you can find all kinds of things to use the 303 with. I even use it on my leatherette interior on the new Prius.

 

This is a joke, right ?
Or a troll maybe ??

Total crock of BS.

And....if you put anything like that on the tread of your tires......you might just slide right off the road if you hit a little bit of water in the first few miles.

BAD, dangerous advice.

 

My 13 Avalon has 45k miles on it's factory original Michelin tires, tread is 4/32 front 5/32 rear, I guess good for another 5k miles. I do check the tire pressures at least once a month and top off to the numbers on the door jam. The tires are rotated every 5k miles. To my mind they should have lasted longer, perhaps I should have run the tires about 5 psi over.

 

I guess I'm the exception to all of you. I'm running on the OEM Firestone's on my "C". Just hit 27k and my tires aren't even half worn. Last set of tires I did buy were Kelly's for my Yaris. They went almost 100k and still had quite a bit of tread left, but needed to be replaced due to dry rotting. To this day those Kelly's were the best tires I ever owned and I do plan on putting a set of them on my C when the time comes. They won't be Low Rolling Resistance tires as they don't offer them, but I'm good with that.

My driving patterns are maybe 10-15% city the rest highway. I also rotate my tires religiously, but fully admit to not checking my tire pressures as much as I should. A bad habit I need to change. As for the OEM tires not being as good as off the shelf tires - I was told at a GM meeting in Indy that the tires are typically low mileage tires with soft rubber compounds to reduce road noise. Nothing more/less.

 

Thanks for the reminder about Kelly tires. They are very rarely mentioned here. And I never see them advertised anywhere. Maybe an occasional mention in a newspaper ad... Tire Tack seemed to have some pretty good reviews when I was shopping, but I need to take another look.

 

I concur.