Tire replacement - Lessons learned.
Just thought I'd share some lessons learned when replacing the tires on my Y.
Because there is so little maintenance on the Tesla, often the tire wear doesn't get pointed out by professionals, so it's similar to needing to remember to replace your home AC air filters. Make sure to check your tires for wear at least once every 5,000 miles, particularly once you're over the initial 20,000 miles. The method that seems easiest for people that have access to the a US penny, is to put it upside down, and check the depth exceeds the hairline: https://www.trafficschool.com/images/course-cmn/penny-test.jpg. Also check for any other issues, such as uneven wear, or chunks missing, or take it into a tire/mechanic shop for them to check.
I did my best to investigate which tires to get for my tesla - the most important inputs seemed to be:
region where you drive (does it snow or does the road turn to ice)
price point of the tires
how loud are the tires
how much "rolling resistance" do the tires have - which has a direct impact on maximum range of the car
availability of the tires (apparently the most desirable sizes are often on back order)
make sure to match the rim size to your existing rims (19, 20, 21).
It's possible to go with tires that are wider than the factory installed tires (which surprised me). Outside of the higher price-point for the slightly wider tires, there seems to be little reason not to go this route - I'll discuss why below.
If the tires have foam in them (according to what I've read that doesn't help much with noise; however should you catch a nail, many tires shops will refuse to fix tires with foam in them, and lose foam may cause balance or noise issues - most of the time these are tires that say they're specifically designed for Electric Vehicles).
warranty of the tire
reputation of the tire (and tire company)
warranty impact on the car from the company (if leased for example - I had mixed results on research on whether Tesla would void any warranty or penalize leaser returns if you don't have a tire installed that's approved by them).
My personal down-select:
I wasn't concerned about price-point as much, because the difference between all options was around $1,000 from the cheapest to the highest. The last previous tires lasted about 4 years with the amount of driving we do (around 37,000 miles), so the $1,000 over 4 years was going to be negligible as compared to potential safety and experience difference between cheapest and most expensive tires. That being said I am a sucker for a good deal, and wouldn't just buy "most expensive"; I also lucked out that my tires needed to be replaced right around the holiday sales in the US (Black Friday).
Noise: I did want to make sure to get some of the quieter tires because of personal preferences, so I prioritized this up.
Seasonal: We live in Southern California, in a location that's a perpetual summer. It does rain rarely, which creates challenges since the oil that has been gathering mixes with the rain and becomes slick, and also the vast majority of drivers are not experienced in driving in the rain. There may also be occasions where we drive to the mountains where there is snow. So I didn't want a purely summer tire or a winter tire, and wanted an all-season tire.
Foam: I definitely didn't want an "EV" specific tire, which usually means that there is foam glued down inside the tire. I've previously had a bad experience where the tire places would not fix a nail in the car, because they didn't want to mess with the foam. Research indicated that noise gains are minimal and potential for lose foam is there (causing tire imbalance/noise issues).
After some initial research I had down-selected to two: Vredestein Quatrac Pro and Michelin Pilot Season All-Season 4 (AS/4). Vredenstein on paper had worse performance than AS/4 (in terms of rolling resistance specifically), but a much better price point. However the consensus I saw online was that they were a great placement option. Alas when I checked in my area all Vredenstein tires were on back-order, with no ETA for when they'd be available. So I decided go with AS/4.
I initially tried to order the AS/4 in the same size that came with my Tesla's 20 inch induction rims (255/40R20 XL) from Costco, on BF. They had the best price on the tire to start with and added a $100 added discount for a bonus. The total price out-the-door, was going to be around $1400. The Costco rep said they didn't have any in the store, and would call me as soon as they came in. Unfortunately/(or maybe fortunately), a few days after the Black Friday sale ended, they called me back to tell me that these were on back order for a few weeks across all Costcos. I didn't want to wait, so that's when I realized you can get wider tires. I checked around, and my local "Discount Tire" shop had the wider tires in stock (265/40R20 XL), and their system showed that they would have no issue installing them. I went back to Costco and had them update my order to the new width, then went to Discount Tire, and had them match the price. The price out-the-door was going to be $1800+tax.
I loved the idea of the wider tires, because our family has tendency to curb the tires, and wider tires may offer some additional protection, also the anecdotal appeal of having more rubber on the road and hence better control appealed to me as well, as the price difference was somewhat minor compared to the overall ownership of the tire.
Because of our propensity to curb the tires, I let the sales guy at Discount Tire talk me into their no-questions-asked tire warranty for 4 years (for around $40 per tire), so the total price with tax was around $2050, with the peace of mind of the warranty (hopefully never have to use it).
Overall the driving/control and noise feels much better on the new tires (night and day). Though I did wait until the old tires were pretty worn down, so my comparative experience may not be reliable. I have no idea on the range yet as all of our trips have been short, and my understanding is that there is always an initial fall on the range until the tires get at least a few thousand miles on them. I'll know about the range once we take the car on our next long trip (we make the same trip once every 4 months or so to visit family, about 150 miles driving distance, which usually drains about 210 miles on actual Tesla range). Visually the tires look great as well, and do not look to wide for the rim - if anything they look better than the factory tires in terms of fit. I'll include pictures later today.
TLDR: I went with Michelin Pilot Season All-Season 4 (AS/4) 265/40R20 XL on my 20" rims - and pretty happy with them.
Just roll into a discount tire for their free inspections and air topping off. They are very well versed with Teslas at this point. They also have no incentive to bullshit you because I don’t think they sales matter that much to employees. In my experience, they just want to help you with reasonable advice.
Ev specific tires are more than just acoustic foam. They also have higher weight limits to account for battery weight and usually lower rolling resistance.
It’s a label that makes it easier for the consumer to find a tire. You can always check load ratings and look for LRR if there is a specific tire you want that isn’t necessarily labeled as an EV tire
An XL tire is an XL tire, EV or not, load rating is the same. In this case load index of 101, and the 19's get a 104.
I’m surprised you compared the grand touring vredesteins to the ultra high performance Michelins, and did not include the continentals DWS06+ or the crossclimate2
In any case thank you for the write up! I appreciate the info.
Those were all great alternatives - I should clarify that I selected those two tires in their relative classes - and was going to see what's on the best "deal". I didn't mean to imply the tires were in the same class, but when "normalized" between price point and all the expected value, I was sure I'd be happy with either set of tires. Sort of like if you're buying wine and you can justify the $150 dollar bottle or the $40 bottle equally (for example if the $40 bottle is really in the upper class and realistic price for it should be $90, while the $150 bottle on sale is $110 - but it's hard to say not if you don't expect the deals often and you're buying it as an investment).
I used various additional data-points to either decide that they weren't right for me - I'll share the data sources shortly - here's one (though it's dated and is for model 3, that I found informative:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lbfE0HNSWJ2MtIP4Mfel3wY5rYMNMjAVjAzRBOK7Vw/edit#gid=391703314
and here's a tire study from AAA, and lots of information for the lay-person (like me): https://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tire-Study-Report.pdf
I'm about to buy snow tires, this post was perfect and came at just the right time. Thank you for doing the hard work
pls share which ones you chose.
As a car guy my entire life, one thing I’ve learned is to never get any tire besides Michelin when you can. While definitely not cheap, they have amazing performance compared to other brands while also wearing down much slower than other brands. Honestly have the best performance to longevity. I always stay away from Pirelli. They have good performance, but wear so fast it’s insane.
Thank you for this post! Definitely saved for when I need new tires.
Great post, thank you!
Thank you for taking the time to post your research.
Wider tires = more rolling resistance/ undeniably less range also = technically more dangerous in the wet/ much more susceptible to aquaplaning (particularly when worn)…. So there’s that…
I think the best advice is to preorder your tires 6 months before you think you will need them. So you can get the tires you want when you need them.
More surface area = more area for a nail puncture ? I’ve had an incredible amount of nails in MY tires compared to any other car I’ve owned
I have found the same. Except the reason I put it down to is that I come into corners a lot faster than all my previous cars. And tend to use “more of the road”. Pushing over white lines due to racing around everywhere 😅 All of my collected screws (4 of them in 4 years). Have been repaired by my local Tyre shop by cutting the foam and repairing from the inside out without issue.
I’ve probably had more than 4 this year alone. Seriously insane
I guess I’m not alone. Had a 2-3 week stretch where we had 4-5 nails between 2 cars. No more construction in the area than usual. Sigh.
Any opinion on Michelin CrossClimate 2 for MYLR? I bought them at Costco for my minivan during their sale and they have been performing great.
FWIW Costco worker said some customers complained about road noise with CC2s. I went with AS4s. In SoCal.
Great post! Let me know when u post the pics. I'm interested in how they look.
Vredestein are hands down the best tires. Made in Hungary and fantastic in snow.
What are folks putting on their Geminis 19” for all season? How much wider have you gone?
I should mention that when I went to go purchase the tires at Costco, they never mentioned that having different sizes was an option. They did offer different manufacturers, but didn't really go into why I would want to choose different widths from the same line of tire; however they were allowing me to purchase, and for them to subsequently install the other tires - which means it's marked as being "allowed" in their system. For context, when I had a nail, that was too close to a tire wall, they wouldn't fix (rightly), because it was not within the safety parameters.
Why’d you go with all seasons in SoCal?
I just got hankook ventus v12 ultra summers
They’re great for occasional water. Otherwise 24/7 sun in San Diego.
I've had a fun adventure with low-profile tires in a Lexus before (spin-out across multiple lanes on i163 by Mercy road). So now I tend to go with tires that will perform well in heavy rain, probably out of PTSD.
That’s understandable
In my case I didn’t go with low profile tires. Stock sized (255 45 19) but summer treads.
After some initial research I had down-selected to two: Vredestein Quatrac Pro and Michelin Pilot Season All-Season 4 (AS/4).
I've never heard of that brand Vredestein. I'm in California too. How did you even learn about them?
Those I came upon mostly researching tire options on this subreddit and other Tesla forums.