Ford tire wear issues?

[WyrTwister]

Originally Posted by SirTanon
Originally Posted by WyrTwister
What tire pressure are you running ?

For close to 50 years , I have tried to run my tires at the max stamped on the tire . Makes them last longer , especially in hot weather and if the vehicle is heavily loaded . As long as the " center " of the tread is not wearing prematurely , it is not over inflated .

It does make them ride stiffer . I can stand that if it saves me $$$ .


... so... one hot day, and you're exceeding the pressure before you even get on the road? I would never do this. You're just asking for tire failure.


Not exceeding anything .

I said air them up to the max listed on the sidewall of the tire .

 

[spk2000]

Certain vehicles are very hard on tires. I have had several Mercury Sables and they are all hard on brakes and tires no matter how you drive them. My grand Marquis is very easy on both tires and brakes despite being a larger heavier car. Can't recall who told me but they said they GM suspension was far superior and probably helped in tire wear. My guess is the Fusion suspension is probably fairly similar to my Sable.

 

[Redright9]

The alignment was checked by a couple places so I feel comfortable about it. I will have to check the wear rating on the tires when I get home, not sure about the past tires. I'm starting to think its a combination of a lot of little things..

 

[tig1]

Both of my Fusions tire life is in the 50-60K.

 

[SirTanon]

Originally Posted by WyrTwister
Originally Posted by SirTanon
Originally Posted by WyrTwister
What tire pressure are you running ?

For close to 50 years , I have tried to run my tires at the max stamped on the tire . Makes them last longer , especially in hot weather and if the vehicle is heavily loaded . As long as the " center " of the tread is not wearing prematurely , it is not over inflated .

It does make them ride stiffer . I can stand that if it saves me $$$ .


... so... one hot day, and you're exceeding the pressure before you even get on the road? I would never do this. You're just asking for tire failure.


Not exceeding anything .

I said air them up to the max listed on the sidewall of the tire .


Right, so say the max listed on the side of the tire is 44psi, and you air them up on a nice day to 44 psi, and then the next day it's 10 degrees hotter and you take a nice drive on dark pavement. Do you think the pressure won't go higher than 44 psi after driving for a while on the hot dark pavement on the 10-degree hotter day? Of course it will.

 

[thastinger]

Mixed bag for me and my Fords:

1. 98 F150 4x4, Goodyear Wrangler RTS, 103K, reason replaced was sidewall rot, plenty of tread still, would have gone back with same tire but they don't make them anymore
2. 13 GT500, Goodyear F1, 11K, reason replaced was that they sucked and tread was about gone, replaced with MPSS

 

[khittner]

OEM tires are generally crap---just enough to get them off the lot and down the road 20-25K. Proper pressure, timely rotations, and a UTQ mileage rating in the 600-700+ range, and you should get better mileage out of a set.

 

[CapriRacer]

Thoughts:

First, the tires that come on new cars are designed to the car manufacturer's specs - and those would be different that what the tire manufacturer specifies for tires sold in the aftermarket. usually, the rolling resistance of OE tires is much better, but the treadwear and/or traction are worse.

It's quite possible that the management of Ford's Fusion program specified tires such that wear was not as good as it could be.

Second, my experience says that the factory alignment specs are too wide - by half! That leads to tire wear issues.

Third, city driving causes much more tire wear than country driving.

So I think the OP is hitting all 3 of those issues.

 

[badtlc]

I had a 2006 Mazda 6 which was a very similar platform. No tire wear issues for me. I got 50k out of the OEM tires.

 

[jjjxlr8]

Originally Posted by SirTanon
Originally Posted by WyrTwister
Originally Posted by SirTanon
Originally Posted by WyrTwister
What tire pressure are you running ?

For close to 50 years , I have tried to run my tires at the max stamped on the tire . Makes them last longer , especially in hot weather and if the vehicle is heavily loaded . As long as the " center " of the tread is not wearing prematurely , it is not over inflated .

It does make them ride stiffer . I can stand that if it saves me $$$ .


... so... one hot day, and you're exceeding the pressure before you even get on the road? I would never do this. You're just asking for tire failure.


Not exceeding anything .

I said air them up to the max listed on the sidewall of the tire .


Right, so say the max listed on the side of the tire is 44psi, and you air them up on a nice day to 44 psi, and then the next day it's 10 degrees hotter and you take a nice drive on dark pavement. Do you think the pressure won't go higher than 44 psi after driving for a while on the hot dark pavement on the 10-degree hotter day? Of course it will.


Like others have already mentioned, the 44 psi max. inflation listed on the sidewall of the tire is a 'cold' pressure rating and corresponds to the amount of air required for the tire to safely carry it's max rated load. The pressure inside the tire will raise above 44 psi due to environment and heat generating from use. This is normal and perfectly safe. I agree that the ride is probably miserable though and I would be surprised if the wear balance was optimal.

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted by jjjxlr8
…… the 44 psi max. inflation listed on the sidewall of the tire is a 'cold' pressure rating and corresponds to the amount of air required for the tire to safely carry it's max rated load. …….


I'm going to be a little pedantic and say that the max pressure listed on the sidewall of PASSENGER CAR TIRES is just that - the maximum. It is (usually) NOT where the load carrying capacity maxes out.

But the point about it being a cold pressure is spot on. The bursting pressure of tires is 3, 4, or 5 times that max pressure listed on the sidewall. This has to do with an engineering phenomenon called Fatigue. It is expected that the operating pressure of a tire will be higher than its cold pressure and because tires are designed based on their fatigue strength, those operating pressures are no where near what it takes to fail the tire due to pressure alone.

 

[Wagonmaster261]

The alignment specs could be "good" but still not good enough. There is a range of tolerance, which could lead to bad tire life. Toe is super important.

My 2002 Focus wagon ending up burning through a pair of General Altimax Artics on the rear axle in about 21,000 miles account weak rear springs. On a Focus, rear suspension compression also adds a bit of toe, which really affects tire wear. New rear springs and shocks, and a new pair of tires, and they seem to be holding up. The front tires are still adequate at 55,000 miles or so. I should be able to wait until fall 2019 to replace them.

I also like to inflate tires to the max on the sidewall. My Focus is fairly sensitive to tire pressure, as lower pressures definitely cause greater fuel consumption. After running higher pressures for a while, if a tire goes lower, in the 35 psi range, I can feel it. Feels like the car has a bit of slop in it compared to usual. On my truck I run 35 psi front, 50 rear. More psi in the front of that causes it to essentially bounce off the road over bumps and whatnot.