Hey Folks,

Well, at a mere 18,000 miles, I've managed to get the Contis down to the nubbins. Since my dealer offers free tires for life, I was not all that concerned, but here is the depth measurements I got. These are right after a recent rotation, so they are little backwards.

Left rear 5/64"
Right rear 5/64"
Left front 4/64"
Right Front 3/64" and into the wear bars

New one measured on the lot - 6/64"

The service manage then made a comment about them being 30K mile tires if you go to 0/64". I told him was insane if he was recommending the I drive these or any tire at or below the wear bars, let alone to 0/64". At any rate, he is replacing the two tires on the front axle. He did metion something about crossing sides when they are replaced to make sure I the better of the four tires on the same axle. I though only older tires are cross rotated, and newer ones are only rotated fore and aft. Beuler?

Either way, thought you might like to hear of some tread wear numbers from a high milage RT.

Jax

 

Don't switch tires from side to side, only front to rear.

Bob

 

Over six inches

 

The old way of meaasuring tread end of life was using a penny. Take is so the head of Abe is inserted into the tread, if you can see the top of his head it was time for new treads. I cant rememeber the measurement, but it is very little. "Thin" rubber would be ok until the rain hits IMO. Just my $.01(only half a mind hahah)

 

In my opinion, tires with a treadwear rating of 360 should last well over 30k miles. They certainly don't stick like 15k-18k mile tires should! I'm hoping that the cradle shift and new alignment will even out the tire wear. My fronts were showing premature wear on the outside edge at ~6k miles, so I recently had the cradle shift/alignment performed at ~7,500 miles. All seems OK now, but it does feel like the car drives a bit more imprecisely (kind of like bumpsteer), like the toe needs to be checked. We'll see...

 

i have had my magnum rt for just over 5,000 miles and i have already had the alignment redone. bridgestone offers lifetime alignments for 139.99 in my area. took the magnum in and the entire rear was out of alignment.

 

Yup, I asked Abe also. He says to replace the front two as well. In Massachusetts, the state will pass your car down to 2/64 (yikes!) or if the wear bars are still not hitting. FYI - these wear bars are some wear between 3 and 4 64th. For you machinists out there, that's about 0.050". According to my minimal engine lathe and mill experience, that's small!

Jax

 

FYI.....I could get into trouble for this...but DCX is aware of the issue and is advising dealers to call Continental directly for accelerated tread wear problems.

It seems to affect the Hemi cars mostly. Gee you think 390 pounds of torque might have something to do with it?

 

We got around 24K out of the Contis on our 1998 Mercedes C280 Sport, so your numbers don't seem out of line. And since our car is a 1998, Mercedes is well aware of the wear characteristics of this type of tire. However I'm not too fond of the Contis on my RT - they seem mushy compared to the C280, maybe needs a few more pounds of air or a lower profile.

 

The distance from the top of Abe's head to the edge of a penny is 2/32" the same as most treadwear indicators.

I'll be lucky to get 12,000 miles from my Conti's, they are wearing evenly.