Excessive tire wear

You can re-calibrate the tire warning light to whatever you want. I believe you hold down the tire pressure button - under the steering wheel - until the light turns on and off or something along the lines. It will then warn you if the pressure is 25% different then what you've just re-calibrated it to.

 

Apparently your TPMS was set at a sufficiently high pressure, but you've been running on the low end, particularly if you've seen the warning light come on.

I wouldn't worry about wearing out the center of the tire. It seems likely you've been wearing out the entire tire by running it at a low pressure. It also seems likely that the extra resistance of the underinflated tires has been eating up your gas savings.

For a bit more information on this whole subject, run a search through PriusChat or Google on tire inflation.

 

What was the most noticeable wear pattern on the old tires?
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_H*

 

i recently got a 3rd set of tires at ~54k. get tires with a good treadlife warranty. check the alignment and get a printout of the current specs, do that every so often to keep record. rotate every 5k and keep your receipt. keep pressures at 42/40 or thereabouts- some people go way over the recommended specs, i personally keep mine at the sidewall max cold pressure in front and 2 less in the rear (44/42) and check every week. (i'm a little paranoid since having 3 flat tires in a 10 day stretch, weekly may be a bit much!)

then if they wear out early, you've got all your ducks in a row for a prorated refund on the tires. then do it all again. that's what i'm doing to keep my costs at a minimum. i got 28k on the integrities, just over 26k on michelin energy mxv4+ tires, and now i've got about 200 miles on michelin primacy mxv4 with a 60k treadlife warranty. we'll see how these wear.

 

I'll second that. After 77,500 miles at 44/42 with my HydroEdges, they were still worn a little bit more on the edge than the center. In other words, tires are built way better now than in decades past. They'll hold their shape up to the MAX COLD PSI without any trouble at all. (Overinflating is when you exceed that.)

.

 

I have had the exact same problem on my 2004 Prius. The dealer offered no explanation. An independent mechanic suggested I keep the tire pressure higher, around 40. I called Toyota and they offered no explanation. They said there were no technical service bulletins about the problem.

 

Start by running higher pressure, and cross check with other tire gauges to make sure your gauge is not misleading you. Remember to check when the tire is cold, not after you've driven. I'm going to assume that the alignment is good as you've reported.

I'm going to ask a potentially delicate question here: how much weight is typically in the car? The reason I ask is that if you are running tire pressure on the low side while carrying 600 pounds of occupants and another 100 pounds in the back then you are in effect overloading the tires compared to say driving around with say 200 pounds (driver and stuff.)

Driving style might also be the cause as could your normal driving route.

Are you wearing out the fronts and rears at the same rate? Or are you seeing a lot of wear front or back when rotating?

Folks are not reporting wear from high inflation pressures, in fact they are reporting exactly the reverse. The comment another made about not getting center wear until the max sidewall is exceeded makes sense.

 

e_c10,

A free alignment should have been done by your dealer before your car was a year old or before 20,000 miles (whichever came first) especially because of the 1st set of worn out tires & the same thing becoming evident as your started to approach the 20,000 mile mark on the 2nd set. You might ask them why they didn't suggest it before 20,000 miles instead of wait'g till 22,000 miles to make you pay for it (& maybe they will offer to give you your money back---especially since they said the alignment had still been good. My 1st alignment check (at 55,000 miles, when I replaced my tires) was still within factory specs by the way.

How was your wear pattern that made the tires all worn out by 10,000 miles? Was it on both outside edges of all 4 tires (still leaving good deep tread in the center areas)? If so, that's from under-inflation. That's what happened to my original Goodyear Integrities. I checked my pressures just before going in for the 5,000, the 10,000, & the 15,000 mile servives & found them one time at the recommended pressures of 35 front & 33 rear (found posted on the door pillar) but the other 2 times I found the pressures at 28 lbs all around & 24 lbs all around (I don't have the tire pressure sensor system on my '05---has your pressure warn'g light ever been on?). That severe under-inflation the 2 times I'm sure contributed a lot to the poor tire wear on the outside edges, but I'm not sure that using the 35/33 will give good tire life either. If your dealer has been under-inflating your tires (like mine was doing to me), then I think your dealer should owe you 2 sets of free tires.

So immediately I began requesting 42/40 & they said well that's why your tires are wear'g funny because you're over-inflating them. I said "no, over-inflation wears the middles out & I've only driven on the pressures you guys have put in for the last 15,000 miles (which was BELOW specs & they have all worn on the outside edges)". "Now I want to start running all the time at 42/40 to stop any more wear on the outside edges & start wearing more in the middle to eventually blend the mid-wear to that of the edge-wear" And that's what I did [I did catch them one more time putting less than 30 lbs all around---so now the 42/40 request gets written right on the work order (which the tech has to sign off on as being properly completed on my copy of the work order)].

I was able to extend my tire life this way all the way to 55,000 miles (even though it was suggested a few times that I buy new tires from them). They were getting close to the molded-in wear indicators when I pulled them off at 55,000 miles, but they were definitely still legal tread. You've got to remember that it's the newest & lowest paid flunky that they usually put on the cars that just come in for the oil/oil filter changes & tire rotations, so you may not always get what you ask for on tire pressures (unless it gets written on the work order). One service writer/manager even told me he was not allowed to over-inflate my tires to the 42/40, but backed down after I showed him the 44 PSI Max on the tire sidewall. Yeah, did they only put 24 or 28 lbs all around in the '01 thru '03 prius that had a 50 PSI Max rating on its tires? (I don't know what the recommended pressures were on those though).

I now have 6,000 miles on my new Continental PremierContact (51 PSI Max rating) tires & I'm still using 42/40 & I seem to be getting even wear still on these. If I notice I start losing more tread in the middle than on the outside edges, I may back it down some to try 40/38 for a while (or maybe even 38/36).

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)

 

The issue is you're running crappy tires. The OEM tires are crappy, which Yokohama tires sis they put on? The Firestones you have on there now are okay tires with a 560 treadwear rating.

How often do you rotate them?

 

A couple of months ago, I had the same problem of premature tire wear. I got 30,000 out of the junk Goodyear Intgritys, Toyota wouldn't acknowledge anything wrong with that even though tire dealers give the Integrity a 50,000 mi. warranty. They did replace them free if I paid for an alignment, which I did. I always run close to max pressure. The Integritys were 42/42, but the Yokohamas max is 35 so I run 35 in them. I have about 5K on them now so I'll see how these wear..... Another on on Priuschat did the same thing and the dealer replaced them totally free and aligned it free also. I understand that Toyota knows there is a problem with tire wear. Refer to tire wear posts over the last 6 months on this site

 

Since when is regular wear covered under a warranty to cover manufacturer defects? If the tire never failed and could still be used, what's the claim? (Of course, with a name like that, I don't actually expect a constructive response.)

Also, why would you be entitled to full replacement? Prorating for use is quite reasonable.

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The Integrity you get from the factory and the integrity you get from a tire dealer are different. OEM tires don't have treadwear warranties. I'd be thrilled with 30k miles like out of the Integritys...

 

I noticed that Fgoodyear said although Toyota didn't admit anything wrong they were willing to replace them if he got an alignment. That at least tells me they are at least willing to work with you on problems. That theme seems to be the norm I have read here on several issues. There will always be exceptions but it is reassuring to see their customer service has stayed a cut above IMO.
These forums are great because you can see what experiences everyone else is having in the real world. It doesn't mean we will always like it but you can't say we weren't aware. There is an unbelievable wealth of knowledge here.

GT

 

I don't really understand all the tire complaints on here. I have over 67,000 on the original Integrities. They aren't the best tires I ever had, but mileage has not been a problem. I run about 40/38 and do 10,000 mile rotations (sort of). I'm just now thinking about new tires, since the outer edges are nearly slick, though the center tread is not quite at the wear bars yet. I do 99% freeway driving, though I consider myself an agressive driver, as far as cornering, etc. YMMV.

Update: I just replaced my Goodyears at 68,000 with BFG G-Force 205-60 15 on stock rims. I took a 5 mpg hit, so far, over the Integrities. Much better ride, handling, and feel in general. If you change tires, beware of losing precious mpgs. Instead of a relatively poor handling 50 mpg econocar, I now have a good handling fun to drive, 45 mpg (more) sporty car. I probably should have gone for 195s, but I've never been one for conventional thinking.

 

OK. Someone who knows tires better than I do better jump in and explain this one to me.

How will filling a steel-belted radial tire at below-max pressures cause it to bulge? And even if it did bulge, how would that cause extra tire wear?

These things could happen, for all I know, but they don't make any sense to me. I've been running at max (or near) for all but a few months. I can see only normal (or even) wear. I also don't see any bulges.

 

I believe the misconception comes from pre steel belted radial days. I had the same misconception until the members here on PC used a big enough 2"x4" to explain it to me. Before steel belted radials, tire PSI definately had a greater effect on the shape of the tire, both sidewalls and tread, without the steel belts to help maintain the shape of the tire. In fact, taking advantage of that phenomena is how you got your chains to fit nice and tight in the winter. Increasing tire psi, will however, reduce the tires footprint, but shouldn't cause any noticeable bulging of the sidewalls, unless you have a broken belt. Increased psi causes the tire to be less resilient making it more susceptable to road hazzards. Perhaps this was the thinking. :noidea:
P.S. I run my Avalon @ front 2psi less than max and rear 2psi less than front. Plan to start there with Prius, reducing if too stiff or too much vibration.

 

Afterthought of previous post! Increasing tire psi with steel belted radials may actually reduce tire bulging. At lease at the sidewall at the bottom. Isn't the bulge the visual clue that you may have a leak or a low tire? And putting aie in the tire reduces the bulge?

 

Basis for class action?