How bad do you let your tires get?

These are the 3 considerations I give. The order is important:

tread depath below 2~3mm
aquaplaning, wet weather cornering & braking
ageing
 
Traction seems to be increasing as these tires wear down!
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I tend to keep them as long as possible, that means pretty flat and worn

however, if the become like tread flat I use the car locally only

Also, if they are worn out and raining season is upon us, I'll replace them sooner; I don't risk getting to raining season with bad tires
 
My truck tires on my 3/4 ton are 12/32 on the present winters and 8/32 on the summers I’ll my putting back on in May. Inshallah. I’ll probably let them go at two to four over the wear bar or earlier of the winters fail to get traction in the snow.
 
depends on season.
If my tires are getting low about mid May I try to run them down and get all I can legally get out of them. If they are getting low early October and wet traction is a issue I end up replacing them if i can’t squeek by with them till late November when I swap out for snow tires. If they are worn too much when I put on snow tires I purchase new tires over the next 2-3 months and have a fresh set for the next spring. It can be very wet in the PNW I find if it is 40*F and rainy in the morning a good set of tires is important.
 
Hydroplaning isn't a problem here. Bald tires do better in sand and with no safety inspections or cops around bald tires is a thing here.

I usually ruin them before they wear out but I do let them get down to the wear bars if they make it.
 
Amen.

At 4/32 they’re gone. Just replaced a set of six year old Michelins on the S600 that had more than 4/32” because of age.

I’ve taken plenty of risks in my life. This is an area where I prefer to avoid risk.
On unnecessary risk....I once shorted a stock, that was stupid, and I never did it again.

When one buys a stock, they can lose 100% of their investment, no more.

When one shorts a stock, the loss has no limit. Luckily I had a small window to cover with a $2/share gain. But as they say, the juice ain't worth the squeeze.

One anamoly was the Michelin Premiers. Michelin claims, good when new, good when worn. Well, we took our first pair to a warranty claim, actually Costco let them go as worn at 3/32". If Michelin is being truthful, then on that and likely many modern designs, there's no need to throw tires away early. I totally get it, I was taught the same way, no need to push them to the cords being exposed....
 
We just dont wear out tires on most of our vehicles. My accord will go over 100k on the OE tires if I let it. We time out, so 6-10 years depending.

If its going into warm weather Im more willing to allow a worn tire (we do have some in certain cases, we have 13 vehicles) than if going into cold weather. Some cars dont see snow/rain, while others do, so "it depends"...
 
I never owned a tread depth gauge but I think I have a stainless plunge gauge.

Generally, when I don't have to search to see the wear indicator bars (aka they jump out at me) I get into tire shopping mode.

Last time, a new set of Goodyear Eagle RS-A (cheaper tire installed by a dealership) were chirping a bit at green lights.
That's bad as I drive very easily.
However, I was approaching an even 50K on that rubber! Gotta go for the 50K, right?
An upcoming 700+ mile high speed trip prompted me to get tires.
 
How bad do you let your tires get before you replace them?
Performance drop?
hydroplane issues?
Down to wear bars?
Cords showing or almost bald?

I usually let them get pretty bad like to the wear bars or beyond.

Probably illegally so... not by choice, a destroyed economy and too much debt can force you into decisions not wise. I've had multiple blown tires. I never let the wife drive on tires like this.

The oldest pair I used was original 33 year old tires on a 33 year old pickup. The truck was nice/barn find kinda, and I couldn't afford to replace the honestly VERY nice deep tread right away. I limited speed to 55mph and watched like a hawk. They werent weatherchecked, it was mostly garaged most of it's life. I got probably 8-10,000 miles out of the tires that way afraid to drive faster but what I learned about raw age was that the tires become very brittle and tiny cracks turn into larger cracks. It's like chocolate you put in the freezer. I hit certain bad bumps and one deer corpse and it instantly put permanent cracks all thru the sidewall, I had to change the tires shortly after that. They probably would have lasted longer if I hadn't hit anything.

I've driven on multiple sets of 10+ year old tires and they all do this by around that point which is why the tire store stuff about 10 years being the safety limit is probably not far off. Some 12 year old tires, I accidentally got the valve stem stuck trying to air one up and it let the air out too much instead - the sidewall instantly cracked the rubber into a crumble pattern and the tire never aired back up again.

Weather checking is a real killer. I've had again, NICE tread, dang near new old stock but vehicle left outside 12 years. Thought I could safely drive on it for awhile. BIG difference in how quickly a tire degrades if you drive 70-75mph vs 55mph. I'd do it around town with no fear. I got maybe 6000 miles with no apparent wear or worsening of anything at the first 55mph then felt overconfident and sped up to 70-75mph. The right front one started separating and thumping more after 300 miles and I had to limp the car home at 40mph to find fully exposed steel cords an inch across by the time I pulled into the tire store at home.

Old tires have noticibly worse traction on wet. However if you have deep tread on snow they still work surprisingly well, that or mud. So if you can control when and where you drive they can be useable if you have to. Driving at 30mph around town on old or weather checked tires i'm not worried about sudden blowouts really. Driving with super low tread i'm only worried about braking in the wet or ice.


Don't live like this if you can help it. : P It's dangerous, and not just to you. Some of us are in bad, bad situations of everything falling apart trying to make it through one more week - thats when you do stupid crap like this and can only try to do it as intelligently as possible to reduce risk. Limping a car just to work at 30mph on old or weather checked tires tho usually isn't life or death, they still stop. No remaining tread in wet or ice is a different matter.

Right at this moment i've got 2/32's or a hair less on my rears, cuz it's been at that for too long to believe it still is, one front 3/32 mismatched to another newer front maybe 9/32. All my spares from a second set are weatherchecked. I wont drive it on ice. I'm JUST trying to limp thru a little longer around town until I see if I can get my other car fixed, which has new tires but has sat for 3 years due to something needing fixing. If I can't i'm going to have to put a new set on it now that snow has come but then I miss other bills once I do that.
 
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The law in the UK is a minimum tread death of 1.6mm (2/32") across the centre 3/4 of the tyre.

During the warmer months I will let the tyres get down to 2mm. However, after 3mm I notice even with the best tyres the wet weather performance dropping off heavily. Therefore, during winter I won't let a tyre drop much below that 3mm threshold.
 
I usually replace at 4/32nds for normal tires and start looking to Discount Tire for the warranty credit. Tires never seem to last anywhere near the warranty around my area as there are lots of turns and slow speeds.
 
I just took these off for the season... Let my fronts go probably 1000 miles more than I should have. My car is staggered, if I could rotate the wear would be more uniform and probably get another 4-5k out of them. Even as it stands though the rears were really struggling in the rain.

Front:
Done on the inside, about 5/32" in the middle

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Rear:
More even wear but only 3-4/32" across the tread

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It depends. The tires on my S4 supposedly have uneven wear due to alignment issues. I probably have 20k miles on them (not entirely sure) but I got them between 2008 and 2010. I don't drive the car at the moment so not in a hurry to replace. I would also need to get new UCAs installed front and rear to fix the alignment issue since the car is lowered slightly.

My 19 Impreza will probably have the tires dry rot before they wear out. I got 15k on them.

My 18 Legacy has 40k on the tires. They are cupped but have plenty of tread left so I'm not replacing them though there are some cracks in the rubber on the sidewall.

My wife's 14 CRV just got new tires. They had ~71k miles on them with enough tread left for probably another 5 - 6k but they were only rated for 70k and were started to get hard. Since winter is coming I would rather be safe than sorry.
 
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