Tire Replacement after .. Miles?

[forestacademy]

2 Questions for those of you with high milage smarts.

How many miles did you get on the origanal tires?

Did you replace them with Continentals or something better?

And I'm not talking about changing the Sizes from the factory origanals.

[JThw8]

I've got about 34,000 on my smart now, the fronts are showing their wear and will need replaced somewhere around 40k. The rears look good still but I will probably replace them all when I do it. Not sure what replacement I will use yet.

[a2jack]

Forest, OK on the PM. Around 18k I started hearing more road/tire noise, but thought it was just rough roads. I had the tires rotated left to right, during my 20k service. They mentioned nothing about tire wear, but nor did I.

The noise started getting louder so I took in to Discount Tire. They found both front tires badly cupped and the rears with an inside ridge.

Took the car back to smart, Mark said Smart warranty wouldn't cover it, but offered to send it out for an alignment and cover me with a loaner. My Cost $80. This to be done after I get some new tires installed.

My plan is to buy one new front. Have the tire from the spare (New) switched out and put on front. Have the rear tires flipped on the rims . total $152. Then take back to smart for the alignment.

If we hear of lots more tire problems with these cars we may have some recourse, so lets keep posting. A2Jack

BTW, this forum is a backwater that many SCOA members do not read. This needs to discussed where more of our members can be made aware of this problem.

[Jeff C.]

I have encountered similar posts concerning what seems like to me a situation where the tires have been diagnosed with a cupping or wear that would be very questionable on what might be referred to as a conventional car.Is there a plauasble explanation as to why this might be happening?I am not well versed in the quality of the tires that come as standard issue nor the causes of this premature cupping of the tires.Any enlightenment would be greatly appreciated.