Replacing one tire- worth it to have it shaved?

[Stevo F]

This is actually in reference to my wife's 2006 Sienna AWD van, but it's the same situation that would apply to our Subaru's.

 

My wife ran over some sort of metal landscaping barrier at someone's house today and it caused a puncture to the sidewall on the front passenger's tire. The current tires have under 10K miles left on them-(this van really eats tires- the crummy run flats that came on it new lasted 13K miles and the regular tires since haven't gone more than 25K miles per set- (I bought an extra rim for a full size spare after the run flats were replaced).

 

Since sidewalls generally aren't safe to repair, and I could probably get one more year out of the tires on the van now, I'm wondering what it costs to buy one new tire and have it shaved to the same diameter as the existing tires. Do most tire places shave tires, or is that process not commonly done?

[powderhound]

I've had a new tire shaved when i needed one.  It is a specialty job that not many shops do.  If the tires have less than 10K left on them just buy 4 new would be my opinion.

[Rooster2]

Don't think shaving tires is an option any more. I live in Indy, and inquired about doing a shave on a tire not long ago. Learned that there is not a shop in Indy that does that anymore. Guess there is not enough profit in doing that to make it worthwhile for a shop to offer that service. With AWD you are correct in needing all tires to be nearly the same tread depth. With 10K miles left on current tires, you are pushing the limit of simply just replacing all the tires.

 

Suggest you upgrade to tires with wear expectancy of 60K miles plus. A good set of Michelin tires will go that distance if you have them rotated and balanced every 5,000 miles.

 

Also, important to check the air pressure in tires. I try to do that at the first of every month, and air up tires that have lost a little air. If I find a tire down 10 pounds, I suspect a leak, and will monitor that tire closely, and check to see if there may be a nail in the tire causing the problem.

[AdventureSubaru]

Good brands will last longer. If $$$ is tight, go used.

 

You can find good tire sets from shops that sell used or via craigslist for a fraction of new cost - often in close to new condition.

 

I got a set for my outback a few months ago - $100 for 5 tires!

[Bushwick]

Yeah, sounds like you are choosing overly soft tire compound. Tirerack.com has a warehouse in Indianapolis and in many cases you can get a set of 4 through them and shipped to your door for LESS than just the tires locally. I did this with my Saab where I bought some 215 45 17 Japanese tires that had excellent dry and wet braking traction, excellent wear, noise, etc. for a fraction of what a comparable Good Year would have been, and the Good Year's didn't even score as high as these. Tirerack also lists all the pertinent info for the tires, and have a legend you can click on to explain what each part of the tire code breaks down to. In your case, you'll want all-season tires with excellent wear, and presumably excellent wet and dry traction along with excellent wet braking. Almost all their tires have user reviews, where people are brutally honest about the tires. Added bonus is most tires have a tirerack rating, think it's a 1-10 scale IIRC where they list wet, dry, snow traction, braking, wear, etc. At a glance, it's very helpful. And if you understand the coding for wear (which they explain), you can make a very informed decision about what to get. Just because you're buying an expensive brand name tire, it doesn't mean the cost spent will accurately reflect long life and superb wet braking for example. I spent a week comparing tires online based off their ratings and found many of the expensive Good Years weren't exactly "good" for example. Michelin for example tends to run thinner side walls and softer compound. While it makes for a better and quieter ride, they aren't as robust and can wear quicker.

 

If you bought tires with a longer life expectancy and a harder compound, it'd save you in the long run as you wouldn't need to change tires so often or have them so worn that when one is destroyed, you either need 4 all new ones or one shaved to match. Also, for what it's worth, if you REALLY want to shave a tire, have it installed on a main drive rim (dunno what type of front/rear bias that runs, but let's assume front sees more bias) and raise all 3 corners off ground with jack stands while using an actual jack on the new tire corner. Probably best to do this in a public street away from other cars and people. And lower the jack to the point where the tire is just BARELY touching 100% even pavement. By barely, I mean BARELY. You don't want the tire getting grip, just a couple mm worth of tread touching. Give it throttle so it breaks traction and spins. Once it no longer makes contact, lower a touch more and repeat. Keep doing until correct tread depth. While dangerous if done incorrectly, it doesn't take much to burn them down. If that's out of your league, might want to try calling a racing shop that deals with installing slicks for drag cars. People that race 1/4 mile tracks might go through them to shave their street radials for better traction. Also, if you are on a budget, could always get a set of 4 no names from a Walmart.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Bushwick

[CNY_Dave]

Tire rack shaves...

[fredinct]

check around and find a used tire with about the same tread life for 20 bucks.

[idosubaru]

check around and find a used tire with about the same tread life for 20 bucks.

 

+1    call all the tire shops, they keep used tires on hand just for situations like this.

 

in general I'll run one off sized tire and leave it where it wears the quickest (up front on all of my Subarus).  i'll leave that one up front and rotate the other three until they're all warn down evenly.

 

if you have an LSD rear diff you want the rear two tires to match.

 

around here - they will install two new tires on Subarus - one on the front and one on the opposite side rear.  apparently this works as long as the diffs aren't locking.

I've been told - i think it was in this forum in another thread - you can only do that if the two matching tires are larger than the others - and you wouldn't want one larger tire up front and the other 3 all smaller...though that's from memory and I"m not sure why but it would have to do with the operation of the front differential.

[Bushwick]

If you are going to mismatch tires, the OD needs to be identical. Also, it's typically a BAD idea to have mismatched front tires as the differing tread pattern can cause odd braking or handling behaviors. If one tire has excellent grip and other is so-so, car might not stop the way it should during a panic stop.

[idosubaru]

have you experienced that on Subarus?  i've never noticed a difference with different tread patterns/tire brands on Subarus. i routinely do that across dozens of Subarus without issues for 20 years. i've even had a snow tire on one side and not the other.  i dropped a off tire this morning with a blown out side wall due to a pothole.  it's from a matching set of new tires but i asked for whatever tire he wants to install, it won't matter. 

 

maybe other manufacturers are more prone to it?

 

maybe it's tire age, compounds, condition, and tread quality?  those are important and probably vary more when people start swapping tires, different brands, etc.  people don't buys 4 mismatched brand new tires - so the mismatching inherently implies variation in age, condition, tread quality, worse alignment maintenance, etc.  that might explain why mismatched tires seem to perform differently and i've never experienced an issue.