'04 Elantra + Pads and Rotors

Holy Cow Chris - I put PepBoy's Futura's on my cars these days and if I
don't get 50K out of them before I get rid of them, I don't put on a mile.
I'm not real good about rotating my tires either. If I had a tire that
crapped out at 15K, I'd never be putting that brand of tire on anything but
a rope swing.

 

The Festiva I had was also front wheel drive and I never had this problem.
I agree with you here Mike, if I was only getting 15k (let alone the 30k
that I only got from these) I would be out of my mind mad right now.

Scott

 

I'd be unhappy with tire wear like you're seeing Scott. Look the tires
over - what's the wear? Indicative of toe problems? Camber problems?
Shock problems? Even a front wheel drive car should deliver 50K miles on
the front tires assuming a decent tire to start with so anything less, like
you're experiencing is pointing to a problem.

A lot of cars don't list camber adjustments anymore, yet they really can
benefit from it. I take my cars to a guy that does nothing but front end
alignments and in that field, he's almost a magician. My '98 Regal was
listed by the factory as requiring a Camber setting of 0 and he put 1/8 in
the car. He had to grind out the holes the McPherson bolts through in order
to make slots of them, and then was able to adjust 1/8" into the car. It
went from ok tire wear to excellent tire wear. I cannot say for a
certainty, but I'd like to also say that the frequency with which I had to
replace wheel bearings was pleasantly affect as well.

 

The other point I failed to make but became obvious after your response is
that driving patterns and climate makes a big difference too. Under 15K
sounds short, but you are thinking of a normal city/highway mix. This car,
under its previous owner (my dad), served 6 years almost exclusively in
daily commuting through torturous urban traffic. Those <15K were
hard-earned: you can't go very far in bumper to bumper traffic with frequent
braking and turns. It is the starts, stops and turning that is hard on these
tires.

For what it's worth, I replaced the rear tires at 30K. They had not worn
down to the wear indicators, but had developed cracks. The replacement tires
-- though cheap -- are lasting much longer than the Dunlops they replaced.

Chris