Front tire wear, is this normal?

Hi all,
I have 9500 miles on the odometer, and the fronts look like this. The rear shows plenty of life left.
Thanks,

someone's been having fun ;-)

nikwax said:

someone's been having fun ;-)

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9500 miles and worn out front tires??? How have you been driving your car?

Surprise the heck out of me too! I do commute on a twisty canyon road, but not overly aggressive, at all. Occasionally in a spirited manner, yes, but not often. The compound must be pretty soft.

DarrenDonovan said:

Surprise the heck out of me too! I do commute on a twisty canyon road, but not overly aggressive, at all. Occasionally in a spirited manner, yes, but not often. The compound must be pretty soft.

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Do you drive in L for maximum regeneration? The wear looks quite even across the tire's tread surface.

MrDRMorgan said:

DarrenDonovan said:

Surprise the heck out of me too! I do commute on a twisty canyon road, but not overly aggressive, at all. Occasionally in a spirited manner, yes, but not often. The compound must be pretty soft.

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Do you drive in L for maximum regeneration? The wear looks quite even across the tire's tread surface.

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If I had to guess, I'd say I drive in L about 40% of the time. How many miles do you guys get out of your tires?

You're not alone. My first set of fronts were bald in less than 10,000 miles as well, which included several driver training and autocross events. These tires absolutely aren't made to handle aggressive driving. They're designed to be quiet and efficient, everything else be damned.

Bryce

DarrenDonovan said:

MrDRMorgan said:

DarrenDonovan said:

Surprise the heck out of me too! I do commute on a twisty canyon road, but not overly aggressive, at all. Occasionally in a spirited manner, yes, but not often. The compound must be pretty soft.

Click to expand...

Do you drive in L for maximum regeneration? The wear looks quite even across the tire's tread surface.

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If I had to guess, I'd say I drive in L about 40% of the time. How many miles do you guys get out of your tires?

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I drive quite conservatively so my front tires at 7500 miles look almost new. I have, however, just started driving in L to maximize regeneration and mi / kWh while driving in town. I will keep an eye on tire wear.

Nashco said:

You're not alone. My first set of fronts were bald in less than 10,000 miles as well, which included several driver training and autocross events. These tires absolutely aren't made to handle aggressive driving. They're designed to be quiet and efficient, everything else be damned.

Bryce

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Hah, that makes me feel better. I don't recall other motorists giving me the finger, so I wasn't driving too aggressively. Did you replace your tires with something different than OEM?
Thanks,

DarrenDonovan said:

I don't recall other motorists giving me the finger

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I also live after hilly drive. It used to be that I kept up with traffic (it's a lot of fun!), but after seeing rapid tire wear, I now take it "grandma" easy, and it seems to help. I pull over to let other cars pass, though some give me the finger after passing. Yeah, I grit my teeth seeing them blow past me, even at traffic lights. I don't know which is worse, my teeth wear or tire wear.

I've 28K on my car and the tires are still about 5K miles from being down to the indicators...they've worn out uniformly too. I'm hoping I don't need to change them before I turn this thing in.

SparkevBlogspot said:

I also live after hilly drive. It used to be that I kept up with traffic (it's a lot of fun!), but after seeing rapid tire wear, I now take it "grandma" easy, and it seems to help. I pull over to let other cars pass, though some give me the finger after passing. Yeah, I grit my teeth seeing them blow past me, even at traffic lights. I don't know which is worse, my teeth wear or tire wear.

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I don't 'Pinch the kWh's' or try to get the very most miles out of the very inexpensive <$400 a set tires. I even put some Kumho 'Ultra High Performance AS' tires on it and saved the stock LRR tires for later.
I enjoy the HayL out of this little EV sleeper Hot Rod !!

Why drive like a granma and make people angry and make a bad name for this car?
Is it just to save a few cents?
You are already driving for way less $/Mile than just about any other car on the road.

Yes, it's normal. The Ecopias are terrible as drive wheels. Mine were down to the wear bars at 9,000 miles. The rears are fine at 22,214.

As discussed many times before, the Ecopias exacerbate torque steer. In my 2014, I had to keep a fierce grip on the wheel to keep from being pulled into the car I was passing on Highway 1. They were dangerous with 400 pounds of torque!

At the suggestion of others, I replaced the fronts with Yokohama Avid Ascends:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Yokohama&tireModel=AVID+Ascend+%28H-+or+V-Speed+Rated%29&partnum=855VR5ASC&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes

They have low-rolling resistance, last longer and track much, much straighter than the Ecopias. I have 13K on these tires and they may just last until my lease is up in January 2017. I don't think they make a 195 for the rear, unfortunately. Yes, I drive aggressively and typically run 40 pounds of pressure all the way around.
I have a personal bias for Yokohamas over Kumhos.

NORTON said:

Is it just to save a few cents?

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One is to save few cents. Front tires would cost less than $300, but at $30/mo electric cost, that's 10 months of driving.

But far more important reason is experiment to see how long the stock front tires would last. If I drove like before, I think they'd be bald at 5000 miles. SparkEV is becoming my "EV research tool" of choice. I let my blog speak about how great SparkEV is, including how long the tires could last with my teeth paying the price.

My tires lost their wear bars at 6k miles. At over 9k, there's almost no tread left. They slip and slide a little more on wet pavement now, too. But what the heck. Those front tires have lasted two years, it's the ONLY expense I have on the car (...well, I did take it in for a 1-year checkup and warranty replacement of that hood latch.) Rear tires? They'll likely last 80k, since there is no acceleration or braking on them -- I use L and light pedal for the most aggressive braking, so again the front tires are doing all the work.

Grit your teeth?? Na, I'm smilin' too much. I'm with Norton: I drive the HayL out of my blue streaker. It's just so much fun!

In fact, whenever I'm first off the line at a green light, I'll be a block away from those pokey gassers in no time. Did that once on a highway heading out of town. Noticed in my mirror some car trying to keep up. He finally passed me...screaming with a big V8. 'twas a new Corvette -- it took ALL he had to catch up and pass me! I got a big laugh out of that.

So the tires are the only expense on this car. Sweet! I'll have to get a pair of the Yokohamas and see if they do any better. I'll report back in a couple of years.

there are a lot of good tire choices for the Spark, there are a couple of threads on this. Yokohama, Michelin, BFG, Kumho, and others, all make tires for this car. A couple of those are even LRR.



I bought new tires the first week I had the car and sold my as-new tires to another inmate. My net cost was only about $200 for new rubber.

I am in a unique position that I race my car on occasion. I have race tires and wheels when I want maximum performance, which stick great but result in a huge reduction in efficiency even in normal driving. The rest of the time I use the Ecopia EP150 because I haven't found evidence that any other tire currently on the market can provide better efficiency. I have 195s all around, which I feel offers improved performance without a measurable efficiency sacrifice. I also appreciate that they're one of the quieter tires on the market. Others have higher expectations for their daily commute and have exchanged some efficiency for performance. There is no such thing as a "best" tire unless you clarify what your priorities are...they all strike some compromises!

For my friends who lease their Spark EV and trying to squeeze every penny out, I've recommended that they use the stock front tires until they're just a little bit better than the minimum required at lease return. Then install some better front tires for their priorities and run those until they're bald or returning the car at end of lease, whichever comes first. That way you've got an insurance policy with those two stock tires to be sure you aren't buying a brand new set of tires at the end of the lease.

NORTON said:

Why drive like a granma and make people angry and make a bad name for this car?

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I enjoy driving efficiently, it's fun to see just how much I can squeeze out of a kWh. It's just another performance metric in a car I like to push, no different from 0-60 times or Gs measured in the corner. I'm not sure why driving efficiently would give my car a bad name. I don't get angry when I see somebody riding a bike on a public road, or when I wait for a passenger train to clear the intersection. We're all in this together, a couple of goons that want me to go 10 over the speed limit or launch from every stop light at maximum power aren't going to get my panties in a bunch. There's race tracks if they want to race, I can embarrass them there in a proper setting.

Bryce

I'm going to replace the Ecopias before they show much wear. I'll keep them and put them back on at lease end. Not many choices if you want to keep the OE sizes , LRR, and have a matching set of 4. A new one has popped up on Tire Rack: Firestone Champion Fuel Fighter. Comes in H or V rated, and the UTQG is 600 AA. Anyone tried those yet? I'm thinking I'll get a set. Firestone gives a 30 day return privilege in case I don't like them. I mostly want less road noise, more precise handling and better on center feel.

There's no need to limit yourself to the OE sizes. If you want more choices, 195's all around work fine.

The 195s are larger diameter than stock. Doesn't that throw off the speedo accuracy? GM must have had a reason for using bigger tires and rims in back.