Some of you know i got a flat tire en route to the dragon this weekend. There was a pretty big puncture through my back right yokohama advan with only a lousy 3k miles on it. So now i've got three advans and some "Fuzion" tire on the back right and i'm wondering whether or not i can leave it or do i REALLY need to change all four tires every time i get a gdamn flat on an AWD car?!

Tirerack says:

Quote :

"Four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive vehicles are equipped with additional differentials and/or viscous couplings that are designed to allow momentary differences in wheel speeds when the vehicle turns a corner or temporarily spins a tire. However, if the differentials or viscous couplings are forced to operate 100% of the time because of mismatched tires, they will experience excessive heat and unwarranted wear until they fail."

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=18

What if i just have the new tire shaved down to match the geometry of the other three wheels, do any of you know of a place in Raleigh that can do this?

Edit: At the bottom of that link tirerack says they can ship a tire shaved and shipped for an additional 25-30 bucks, is there special tooling to get a good tread wear drop?



[Edited on March 27, 2007 at 5:02 PM. Reason : .]

3/27/2007 4:42:56 PM

I'd just replace the back two tires. Personally, I would find some used ones and see if you could just replace one with similar tread pattern as the left side. Would be a waste of money to buy a new one and manually shave it down, not to mention a bit time consuming.

3/27/2007 5:06:01 PM

better info below

[Edited on March 27, 2007 at 5:12 PM. Reason : -]

3/27/2007 5:09:35 PM

3000 miles is relative
it's recommened not to excede 3/32nds difference
you might be able to get away with changing 2 or even 1 if the wear is not bad on the rest........do you have a tread depth gauge?

tirerack offers shaving and heat cycling......but i don't know that you can request a certain depth of shaving, that's not what it was ment for, but by all means call and ask if you want

3/27/2007 5:10:58 PM

this thread needs [crappy cell phone] pictures



what happened to e-baying the advans and getting either kumho MX's or Azenis 615's ?

3/27/2007 5:25:16 PM

damn, thats a large ass cell phone pic. 2mp?

3/27/2007 5:35:06 PM

^ indeedy

3/27/2007 6:01:00 PM

^^^ i thought the stock Advans were pretty much the performance benchmark?

i mean, they're pricey, but would you really save enough money selling even lightly used tires and then having more tires shipped, mounted, and balanced that you could justify having inferior performance?

3/27/2007 6:06:24 PM

you cant beat kumho for the money.

well at least not on 15" rims you cant.

3/27/2007 7:27:12 PM

I like my azenies. $500 for all 4 tires is perfect

3/27/2007 9:05:13 PM

^, ^^ i'm not saying that Yoko Advans are the best bang for the buck. I'm just saying that, as best as I can tell, they're pretty much the best bang.

even lightly used (and with the customer having to buy them cheap enough to make it worth shipping them), i find it hard to believe you're gonna get enough money for them to pocket enough over the price of buying 4 more tires, having them shipped, mounted, and balanced. I mean, you'd have to make a pretty good profit for it to be worth the performance downgrade. otherwise, you'll be sitting there with Kumhos on your car saying, "Wow, these are great tires at their price point, but for $100, I could've kept my Advans, which is probably by far the best thing I could've done for my car's performance for $100."

3/30/2007 8:39:51 AM

the duke is a wise man

3/30/2007 8:48:14 AM

You already bought a brand new tire right? Stick it in the rear and don't rotate. It'll be fine, especially if the rest only have 3k on them.

3/30/2007 3:49:11 PM