Comments on Tyres
Submitted: Tuesday, Jan 22, 2002 at 01:00
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Neil Smith
I recently purchased a Nissan Navara 4WD (in July) and will need to replace the tyres in the near future, am currently running on Firestone firehawks.
I was told by a national tyre company rep that even though 4WD tyres cost twice as much as conventional tyres they last twice as long. Is this a true statement, am I likely to get 80,000kms out of a set of tyres through normal driving?
Has anybody has experience with the Firestone tyres as I'm thinking of purchasing a replacement set.
Reply By: Joe - Tuesday, Jan 22, 2002 at 01:00
Tuesday, Jan 22, 2002 at 01:00
Neil,
When you are talking to a rep you must remember that, as a sales person, they are basically genetically bound to present the fact of any case in a manner that best suits whatever it is they are selling.
IMHO they are all similar to the used car salesman and are therefore all lying, cheating bastards. As I say, that is IMHO and is a broad brush generalisation.
Before you start looking at brands you should take a good look at the type of driving you will be doing.
If you are going to spend 98% of your time on road with the other 2% being beach or dirt road work then you should be looking at
Highway Terrain (HT) tyres.
If you are doing more off road work then you should consider
All Terrain (AT) tyres, or if you are doing any half serious off roading then look at
Mud Terrain (MT) tyres.
Now, longevity.
Well 4WD tyres are bigger so they almost always do last longer than the tyres on a conventional
sedan. 80,000 klms is not unheard of, and there are some manufacturers (Cooper for example) who will guarantee that distance. Beware of the stipulations in the guarantee though - you need to have the tyres checked, rotated etc every 10,000 klms by a Cooper approved technician.
I find that 60 to 70,000 klms is more normal for a set of tyres, but I do tend to change them before they get close to being illegal, so I could possibly get closer to the 80k mark.
Firestone tyres - I have no experience with these tyres so I can't offer any advice there other than the fact that if you were comfortable with them before then you probably won't go far wrong.
There were some scares for people who had Firestone tyres on Ford
Explorers, but that was (I believe) an isolated case.
Good luck
Joe
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Follow Up By: Neil - Wednesday, Jan 23, 2002 at 01:00
Wednesday, Jan 23, 2002 at 01:00
Joe, thanks for your info, my driving this year will be 85/15 highway so A/T tyres look to be the go. We'll buy five, rotate regularly and see what mileage we get. Re your comment on tyre Reps - couldn't agree more.
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