"How long do car tyres last"

[Gibbo2286]

When I was trading I had a customer who ran a milk round, I converted an Austin J4 van into a float for him he found it was ideal for the job and later asked me to get a professionally built brand new one for him.
I acquired from the main dealer an Osbourne milk float built on the J4 chassis, it had Dunlop tyres which it wore off in just over 3K miles, I went to Austin for advice, they said "Try Goodyear 800s."
The Goodyears didn't do much better so at the motor show I got to the Michelin stand and had a long chat with their rep, he asked for the address and made an appointment for an engineer to attend, the guy bought a load of kit with him weighed each axle loaded and unloaded and suggested I fit a set of Michelin XCs smaller than the original tyres and set at 36 psi pressure.
Those Michelins were still on and useable when the milkman died and his widow sold the van with 46k miles on the clock.

[Dormouse]

If you Google Michelin XC tyres just now you will get Cross Country Bicycle tyres. How times have changed.

[Dormouse]

For those of you who have never seen a Michelin X for real, here is Michelin's current vintage tyre offers.

The X was rounded across the tread even when inflated and had "soft" compliant sidewalls which flattened the tread on the road surface a bit, increasing the contact patch. In many ways a revolution in tyres when it was introduced and had many of the modern features like sipes that we see today but flawed in that it was designed for cars that did not have the performance that came over the next decade or so.

The Pirelli Cinturato which followed it started to address these flaws and it has all led to the modern Radial Tyre as we know it.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirelli_Cinturato


https://www.alfaworkshop.co.uk/alfa_rom ... yres.shtml


You will notice the flatter tread profile compared to the Michelin X.


https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... cba1185463

A 1962 report in Motorsport magazine.

[Michel]

I usually get 10-12k out of a set of front tyres. In my youth, I once got 2200 miles out of a set of rears on a Volvo 360!

I've done 7500 miles on the BMW since I got it in June, doesn't really appear to have worn much at all on the rear tyre. I got 1500 and 2600 out of the two rears I put on the MT09, which was partly why I got rid of it.

[CitroJim]

The way I use my cars and the distance I travel, mine are replaced on a time basis or when the sidewall cracks become a concern...

[Michel]

The way I use my cars and the distance I travel, mine are replaced on a time basis or when the sidewall cracks become a concern...

I don't even think cracks are a concern for yours Jim, you tend to stay away from relativistic speeds...

[CitroJim]

The way I use my cars and the distance I travel, mine are replaced on a time basis or when the sidewall cracks become a concern...

I don't even think cracks are a concern for yours Jim, you tend to stay away from relativistic speeds...

Very true Mike! I meant to say when the cracks are so deep I can loose spanners in them