Hi everyone,

I purchased 4 new tires about two years back to replace the ones on my XF 2013 (V6 Supercharged RWD). They are the Continental Extreme Sport DWS06 Plus. Last year, my steering wheel started shaking, so I went to get my wheels balanced but that didn't completely fix the issue. I took my car to the dealership for it's annual maintenance and I was told that one of the tires has a higher road force on it. I called the shop where I got my tires from and they said that they look at the road force when they balance the wheels and nothing came up on my car. I didn't do much after that for a while (my fault, I agree). I got my tires rotated towards the end of last year (mileage around 89000 miles). Recently the shaking increased quite a bit, so I went to the shop again to talk to them about the road force and also to see if the wheels were balanced. They checked my tires and told me that the front tires tread is about 6/32 on one of them and 4/32 on the other. The rear tires are both at 3/32. They recommended that I change the tires and that they would give me a credit as it's only been 24000 miles since I changed them and the warranty is upto 50000. They said they can only issue this credit towards three tires and not the 4th (6/32) as that still has tread on it. So I wanted to ask, should I replace all four of the tires or just three of them? I have always read and been told that I need to replace tires in pairs but I just wanted to get people's opinion on this before I purchased the new tires. Any help would be appreciated.


Thank you!

 

Yes - would replace all four as it will be odd to pair one heavily used tire with 3 new ones.
Impressed they are replacing once you've driven 24,000 miles. I've never got more than that on any tire on mine... You got lucky?

 

I agree, go for all 4. And probably an alignment. Sounds like you might have a control arm worn.

I almost always buy my tires from TheTireRack.com. In addition to (usually) good pricing, you get a free 2 year non prorated warranty. I then take them to my local Discount Tire store for installation. They generally have newer installation and balancing equipment, rebuild the TPMS seals for free and afterwards, offer free tire repair, rotation and (if applicable) seasonal tire swaps.

 

I think this is the best advice you can get. Also you may want to change whoever rotates your tires--there is no way that you would see such wear patterns if the tires are rotated frequently unless of course you have suspension or alignment problem. I usually rotate my wheels every 5-6000 miles and it is easy to spot any excessive or strange wear pattern.

I use the same tires as you on my 2012 XF Portfolio 5.0 V8

 

Yes - if not a staggered setup you should rotate for sure to get more life from them
My 2010 V8 has staggered so fronts and rears cannot be swapped. So I go through 2x rears for the life of one set of fronts.

 

That makes sense. Is getting around 20k-25k miles on tires normal? I don't know what the usual rate of change is, these tires were the first time I changed mine. Maybe I got lucky? I wasn't sure what they would do when I mentioned that I recently purchased my tires, so it was a surprise when they said that they would give me a credit.

Thank you for replying!

 

Yes, I will get an alignment done as soon as I get the tires installed. The control arm issue makes me nervous, I don't want to drive with that issue. I will get that checked out too.

I will check out TireRack.com but I doubt it will be cheaper now with the discount that the shop is offering me. The shop that I got these tires from is Discount Tire but I didn't know they did all of these. I asked for alignment there and they said that they don't do that. Maybe a different store does it? Also, did you mean tire rotation by tire swap?

Thank you for replying!

 

Yes, I should have rotated my tires every 5-6k miles but I didn't do that, that was my fault. I just did it earlier this year and I was planning to do it again after 6k miles. I will be on top of it from now for sure.
Nice! How many miles do you usually get with your set of tires?

Thank you for replying!

 

Yes, I didn't do my due diligence on this front, I will make sure to do it going forward.

Thank you for replying!

 

Control arms: Depends on the suspension design, age, road conditions and mileage. I have a 225.000 mile XC60 that has never needed control arms, my XF got new front lowers, new rear uppers, sway bar links and new rear shocks at 90,000 miles. If you don’t have a dedicated JLR mechanic, it’s time to find one. They will check out your suspension and do or subcontract out an alignment.

Rotation: Front to back but not side to side unless staggered in which case, leave ‘em be.

Discount Tire: (started in Ann Arbor, I used to live very close to store #1) now owns The Tire Rack. You are probably correct that with the rebate you are getting a better deal but factor in that Discount charges for their warranty and it’s prorated. In the long run, The Rack’s FREE 2 year non-prorated is appealing.

 

" Control arms: Depends on the suspension design, age, road conditions and mileage. I have a 225.000 mile XC60 that has never needed control arms, my XF got new front lowers, new rear uppers, sway bar links and new rear shocks at 90,000 miles. If you don’t have a dedicated JLR mechanic, it’s time to find one. They will check out your suspension and do or subcontract out an alignment.

Rotation: Front to back but not side to side unless staggered in which case, leave ‘em be.

Discount Tire: (started in Ann Arbor, I used to live very close to store #1) now owns The Tire Rack. You are probably correct that with the rebate you are getting a better deal but factor in that Discount charges for their warranty and it’s prorated. In the long run, The Rack’s FREE 2 year non-prorated is appealing."

Shoot, that's quite a bit. Would you know how much that cost you overall getting all those fixed? I didn't know about Discount Tire owning Tire Rack. I was going through Tire Rack's tire warranty policy and I couldn't find the 2 year non-prorated option. Could you point me to it if possible?


Thank you!

 

Feel free to call The Rack. Very nice, knowledgeable sales guys who actually get to test drive tires. They can explain the warranty.

After owning Audi's and BMW's I can tell you, that ain't even close to "quite a bit". But to deal with the cost I buy from Autohaus AZ or FCP Euro and do most of the work myself with the help of a buddy who is a BMW tech.

 

I can't really answer this. My car has only 30k miles from new(it is not a daily driver) and I put DWS tires on 3years ago and they have done about 8k miles so far. When I had my Mazda6 Turbo they lasted about 30K miles.