Mini Cooper Tyre Wear

[Monsta Mo Mini]

This was sent to me:

Hi,
Can you shed any light on the average number of miles you can expect to get from your front tyres with a non-aggresive driving style?
I own a Cooper which is 18mths old and has only done 11,000 miles yet the tyre wear is fine on the inside of the tyre but almost completely bald on the outside. BMW have finally agreed to do an allignment check for free (normally £140.00 after 12 months allignment warranty expires.)
Has anyone else had the same problems? My car had to go back for the common pulling to the left fault and had new struts fitted ...could this have anything to do with the tyre wear problem?
My friend has a cooper s that the tyres lasted only 6000 miles with the same outside wear problems and bmw tried to blame his driving style but it eventually turned out that Henry Bros. tracking machines calibration was out (Mine was bought from Douglas Park.)
I'm having two new tyres fitted at the weekend before the allignment checks carried out (keeping the old tyres just in case I can somehow get something back from bmw.)

Any advice welcome...

Cheers,

David Sprott

[KenL]

No problems on my car, it has perfect even wear on all tyres.

Uneven wear is normally caused by tracking errors I would think.

I have 21k miles on my ONE and all the tyres are still looking good with ~5mm all round. I did rotate the tyres front to back after 10k miles so the fronts may have been needing replaced around now.

Non run-flat 15" dunlop tyres on my car BTW.

[Steve74]

Check the tyre pressure when the car is cold - this can cause severe wear if not right.

[Julz]

I got 10,000 out of my last set of Toyos!!

[Big Gordy]

Yeh......Too high and they wear in the middle, too soft and both edges wear........:approve:

[Duncan Stewart]

I got 10,000 of even wear out of the fronts (15" pirellis) and backs still had a even 5mm on them. most of my driving is done on rough twistie country roads. Had 4 wheel tracking done on my last car at main dealer (Toyota) which I though was a rip off at £70. 2 wheel front tracking can be checked at any local tyre centre for a fraction of this cost.

[Starky]

Do you think it would be worthwhile rotating the wheels?, i.e. cape to corner,back to front, that way you could possibly squeeze a few more K's out of em. Just out of interest, if the tyre pressure is so low to cause wear do u not get the runflat ind. light coming on.

[Julz]

quote:Originally posted by Starky

Do you think it would be worthwhile rotating the wheels

I know alot of people do this, but I don't for the pure theory that if you just replace the worn ones, you only have to buy 2 tyres, rotate them and they all wear and you have to buy 4, little kinder on the pennies!!:)

[KenL]

quote:Originally posted by Starky

Just out of interest, if the tyre pressure is so low to cause wear do u not get the runflat ind. light coming on.

The tyre pressure light (which has nothing to do with runflat tyres BTW ) will not detect a gradual loss of pressure over time from tyres.

The reason is that it works by detecting a change in rotational speed between tyres so if both your front tyres have lost say 10psi over a long time because you've not checked them it won't detect it.

[Starky]

I don't get that 1 Ken, surely it must pick up the speed dif. at some point.