Abnormal tyre wear Firestone Firehawk

ChewyLuey

Hi All

I got 2 Firestone Firehawk TZ200 195 60 15s put on last September and did a front to back with the tyres previously on the front. Now, about 11,000 miles later (I drive well within the law, and do not make excessive use of the brake, a run of the mill driver in other words) the Firestones are pretty well fecked. Will have to change agian in the next few weeks. Meanwhile the 2 I changed to the back are still fine with definitely another few thousand left in them. (one Vredestein and one Champiro).

Does this wear seem excessive/abnormal ? The wear is even from inside to outside of the tyre, not just in one patch.

cheers

sundodger5

it is not excessive but i have seen more mileage out of those tyres also. The problem with tyres is that one that gives you loads of mileage will have a harder rubber compound this very basically translates to less grip. if you drive very reasonably you may get away with a harder compound.
personally i go for the grip rather than the mileage as you never know when you may need that extra grip. It is also normal for a front wheel drive car to wear tyres faster at the front. the driving wheels do all the work. the norm is around three sets of fronts to one set of rears if they have not been swopped around.

Type 17

I bought a 2004 Golf 2.0 GT TDI with DSG last November and the VW dealer had fitted new Firestone Firehawks all round. I've put over 10k miles on the car in that time, and have made use of its performance where possible (no messing, but some quick driving and stopping amongst the normal stuff), and the fronts still have 5-6mm on them, and the rears have almost the full 8mm that they came with. I wouldn't rate this as an especially soft tyre - I've had tyres on other cars last as little 10k miles (Yoko's on a Mk1 Golf GTI) to 30k miles (Continental Sport Contacts on a 1.3 Mk1 Golf).

If you're still unhappy, get the relevant alignments checked (castor, camber, toe).

crosstownk

I've little experience with Firestones - but the other half, Bridgestone, seem OK. What speed rating are the tyres you got? The higher the rating, the softer the compound, the greater the wear.

If both tyres are worn evenly across the full profile, then I'd tend to blame the tyres.

TychoCaine

They're a crap tyre though. I put a couple of them on the front of my Focus a couple of years ago and the car understeered like you wouldn't believe in the rain. It took nearly 20,000 miles to trash them (so I could expense a new pair ), and I tried

wingnut

Last firehawks I got one wore fairly fast, the other was rotated to the back where it still is. Don't think I'd buy again.

ChewyLuey

Anyone want to recommend something more suitable/better for me based on the above ? As I say I'm a typical driver and I'm looking for a good balance between grip and longevity and would think the 11,000 miles I got from these is a few thousand too few. Again the size is 195 60 r15. Cheers

ChewyLuey

Bump, thanks

bazz26

ChewyLuey wrote:

Anyone want to recommend something more suitable/better for me based on the above ? As I say I'm a typical driver and I'm looking for a good balance between grip and longevity and would think the 11,000 miles I got from these is a few thousand too few. Again the size is 195 60 r15. Cheers

I had Vredestein Sportrac on my car before and I got around 30k miles out of them. www.eiretyres.com are selling them for €75 a corner at the moment.

ChewyLuey

Cheers, actually speaking of eiretyres I have a question about their/general tyre classification....

Heading into September, should we in Ireland look for "All Season" tyres specifically or are "Summer" tyres suitable too as we do not get snow......or are "winter" tyres suited for our wet winters ? Doing only 12,000 miles avg per year my tyres obviously go through several seasons so logically "All Season" would appear to be the ones I need. But maybe summer tyre are suited to Irish winters too ?

Please enlighten me :-)

bazz26

ChewyLuey wrote:

Cheers, actually speaking of eiretyres I have a question about their/general tyre classification....

Heading into September, should we in Ireland look for "All Season" tyres specifically or are "Summer" tyres suitable too as we do not get snow......or are "winter" tyres suited for our wet winters ? Doing only 12,000 miles avg per year my tyres obviously go through several seasons so logically "All Season" would appear to be the ones I need. But maybe summer tyre are suited to Irish winters too ?

Please enlighten me :-)

My understanding of "winter" tyres is that they are designed for harsh winters where snow and hard frost are the norm. Not really suited to Irish winters which tend to be mild 90% of the time.

That's my take on it anyway.

ChewyLuey

bazz26 wrote:

My understanding of "winter" tyres is that they are designed for harsh winters where snow and hard frost are the norm. Not really suited to Irish winters which tend to be mild 90% of the time.

That's my take on it anyway.

Thanks. Does that mean that we should use "all season" in the winter here or "summer" ? (as illogical as it sounds :-) )