Premature Tire Wear '02 Avalon

[Golfduff]

Has anyone out there experienced premature tire wear on their Avalon.

I bought my '02 brand new and put aftermarket 17" wheels on it right away.

I go through a set of tires in about 25-30k miles due to inside tire wear.

I have had Toyota look at it along with several local shops and they all say that the front and rear alignments are in spec.

Any suggestions? Could it be the Wheels?

Thanks

[TrailDust]

Originally Posted by Golfduff

Has anyone out there experienced premature tire wear on their Avalon.

I bought my '02 brand new and put aftermarket 17" wheels on it right away.

I go through a set of tires in about 25-30k miles due to inside tire wear.

I have had Toyota look at it along with several local shops and they all say that the front and rear alignments are in spec.

Any suggestions? Could it be the Wheels?

Thanks

Are you getting the wear from the drive wheels only, or is the inside wear coming from all four tires?

TrailDust

[Golfduff]

All four tires are wearing. Drive tires might be worse, but it is hard to say since I rotate them every 3000 miles to help try to prolong the life.
Any suggestions?

[TrailDust]

Believe it or not, it still sounds like an alignment issue to me. Upsizing wheels/tires messes around with alignment tolerances. The tolerance ought to be set closer to inner tolerance range. I'd call around or talk to people in your area and find a tire shop that specializes in four-wheel alignments AND frequently handles customers trading up in wheel and tire sizes. Good mechanics are like good doctors, they're not all the same and when you find a good one...keep him!

Keep us up to date on what happens, and good luck.

TrailDust

[new echo owner]

Do you have a print out of the alignment specs for your car from the alignment?

N.E.O.

[ChiTDI]

Quality of tires can have an effect too.
My original Dunlops ('02) lasted nine thousand miles. Replacement Michelins went over 60k. No changes to the front end.
Your case though has the larger wheels and as stated above, that effects geometry.

[thattoheath]

my 04 OEM tures were done at 25K and I replaced with expensive goodyear triple tread directional tires. They need replacing after only 25K ,this avalon seems heavy on tires compared to generation 1 Avalon, that I traded for this one.Last time I buy directional tires.......................
Check out www.tirerack.com. for best all season radials for thios model .I recommend that you dont splash out for expensive tires or 65-80K as you will probably be dissapointed. Go with a middle of the road all season touring tire and buy for the environment where you live.

good luck

[TrailDust]

I think it's how you drive them, especially in the city. I previously owned an Acura Legend that was front-wheel drive too and in the same class as my Avalon, and regardless of the tires I've averaged 50,000 miles per set. That mileage has been 70% city and 30% highway.

[tr7driver]

I wore out a set of T/A performance radials on my 98 avy in 13K. Great tires, but no tread life. They wore out very evenly, so I figured my suspension and everything was ok. However, I put a set of cheap Runway all season radials on it because I didn't want to ruin an expensive set of tires if there was something wrong with the car that the tire shop couldn't find. They still had good tread left on them when the car was wrecked 45K later. What I learned was that some of the higher performances tires trade off tread life for performance big time. I imagine even small allignment and inflation issues would magnify the problem quite a bit.