Comments on: How long should the factory installed tires last?

By: BG

BG — Tue, 11 May 2010 12:11:05 +0000

Something seems wrong here. My 265 is at about 23K kms now with the OEM tire and I’ve been HARD on them (trackday, three autoslalom events). About 8K KM on my my winter set, so about 15K KM on the Dunlops. Not as much as you I know, but believe me, the track and autoslalom uses a lot more than 5k of normal driving.

I would take you car to an alignment shop ASAP and check that front and rear toe is set to 0.0.

Do you know where on the tire they wore through? What pressures are you running?

The Dunlops have decent grip yes, but at a treadwear rating of 280 are far from ’super sticky’ and should last much more than 25K in normal driving.

Brandon is correct on tire rotation also. I rotated mine when I swapped them back on after winter, and after each ‘event’ I drove. Fronts obviously wear faster.

Be careful with just replacing the fronts. If your backs are worn down to a reasonable degree then you’re left with a different diameter between the front and rear tires. This will MELT your center differential. Another reason to rotate often.

By: Brandon Mina

Brandon Mina — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:04:50 +0000

Did you rotate the tires? AWD cars wear down the tread very quickly and you should rotate the tires every 11,000km or so. Same goes for your winter tires. This could be the reason.

Basically the reason is that the Dunlop SP (original equipment) are very good. In other words they are extremely sticky, that is – they do their job. And when tires do their job well for a car that moves like the WRX, they burn tread fast. So if you’ve been driving the car fast and you’ve never rotated the tires, I’m not surprised to hear that they needed to be replaced after 20k or so.

I got my 2009 WRX 265 in August and put about 5k on my summer tires and about 11k on my winter tires. I have since taken my winter tires off but when I put them on next winter I will have them rotated first.

Hope this helps…

By: Will

Will — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:14:37 +0000

On my 02 WRX wagon I got 20,000 miles out of two different sets of OEM tires, 15k out of one fun set of Yokohama AVS ES 100s and 30,000 miles each on three sets of Yokohama HTR+

6 sets of tires, 3 sets of discs/pads, original clutch!

Yes I have that many miles on my car

By: P.I.

P.I. — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:43:00 +0000

winter X-ice – 16” and no issues in my wrx. Performance is as you would expect for winter tires.

By: cata_o

cata_o — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:03:52 +0000

I’m using 205 – 16″ Dunlop 3D winter tires. Mileage is somewhat better, the performance on dry pavement, especially cornering, is definitely worse. I need to see more snow to have an idea how these work as designed. On the positive side, they are quieter.

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:46:28 +0000

Any one using 16″ winter tires instead of 17″. The dealer said it mkaes no difference in performance and mileage.

Is this true?

By: rxwagon

rxwagon — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:01:43 +0000

Just got the wrx in mid november. Great car, but now that its fully broken in, I have the snowies on, and I can definitely NOT push the car as much, boohoo…. I have had the tires on for less than a week, and I noticed wear on the edges already!!

Btw, I ran RE 070(sti) tires on previous wrx and legacy GT and I still have tread left!!

By: Samer Forzley

Samer Forzley — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:24:22 +0000

I guess it is.

So next spring, we need to have a “what performance tires are best for the wrx” post. For now, snow shoes…..

By: Samer Forzley

Samer Forzley — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:23:12 +0000

you are gonna miss out on driving that car all winter. I drove it all winter last year and it was fun to drive with the AWD. But if you have a landscaping truck, then you get the AWD and off road fun lucky you

By: Geoff

Geoff — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:42:09 +0000

I never got more than 20K on my BFGoodrich G-Force Sport tires. Fast wearing is just par for the course with soft, sticky performance tires.