I have Conti DWS 225/45zr18 tires on my GS350, and I was misled to believe that these tires would last a long time because they came with 50000 mile warranty.

My contis started with 11/32 tread, and <12000 miles later, I'm down to 6-7/32
...so half the usable tread is gone, but it's worn evenly.

I don't drive hard, and I rotate the tires every 5000 miles. So twice so far.

Looks like these tires will only have 25000mi tread life, which is about the same as the OEM dunlops that came with the car.


Now I'm wondering, does the GS eat tires regardless of brand, or is there just no such thing as a long lasting low profile tire?

The Tire Rack reviews show a bunch of people getting well over 50000 on the DWS, but they're mostly FWD cars, like the civic SI, scion xD, Azera, Jetta, Accord .
One review of the Pontiac GTO RWD only got 25000mi out of these.

 

How hard a driver are you? The harder you corner, accelerate, and brake, the quicker the thread will wear. A number of other factors also come into play with tread-wear, such as how heavily the car is loaded, type of road-pavement, road-surface temperature, (heat is an enemy of tires), how well you keep your tires inflated to recommend PSIs, wheel-alignment/balance, and whether you are running stock or aftermarket wheels/tires and suspension work.

 

All your wheels are the same on the GS? I thought unless the car had the base 17" which are the same size, that the 18" were staggered. I'm assuming your GS is RWD and not AWD.

Anything 'low profile' I wouldn't expect to last more than 20,000 miles. Especially with the IS and GS as both have a lot of negative camber especially in the rear which and prone to eating tires.

 

stock suspension, oem wheels. I'm vigilant about tire pressure, that's why I have even wear.

I don't drive hard because I'm trying to get better mileage. I don't take corners turns slow or fast.

But I've read that the GS comes with a bit more negative camber in the rear, and maybe more toe in.
My front tires now have a little bit more wear, since they were rotated from the rear.

If it's even possible to have less camber and toe in, I wonder how that would affect the stability and handling


yeah, the RWD GS came with all 4 wheels same size. Not staggered like the IS

I wonder if our camber is more negative than say, the Lincoln LS rwd.

 

I put Conti ExtremeContact DWS 255/35/19 OEM size on my wife's 2010 A5....they lasted about 26k and had more life but got noisy as hell via inside wear from camber (had it aligned at time of tire install).

 

Got it, good to know.

I think it is a little more aggressive than the Lincoln LS if memory serves me. My uncle had a 2005 iirc with the 3.9L V8, which he kept until a few months ago got an RX450h. Great car that boasted cooled seats, not just ventilated . I digress though, the biggest wheels they used were 17" on the V8 models, and 16" on the V6's. I don't remember the series tires but they were Michelin.

Something like this:

 

Weight of the car plays a big role as well.

 

I have michelin PS2s on my Mercedes and they also come with a great warranty. Until you read the fine print, that if you have a staggered set up, you only get half of the tread warranty...

 

I also have the Michelin PS2's on my IS. So far they are wearing very well. I'm almost at 10k and they don't seem to be showing much wear at all. But yes, the staggered set-up limits the warranty. Even with that, I think they are still going to last long or hit some warranty coverage the way they are going.

 

I've never had low profile tires last more than 25k, 30k miles tops. Of course my SC300 is a staggered setup, and my old Camaros I ran sticky "summer compound" tires and drove them like I stole it.

 

did you measure how much tread was left at 26000?

 

I have had several sets of DWS and no way are you getting 50K out of them.

Maybe ContiProContacts but those suck IMO,

 

no, but I will - I kept 2 of them in case of emergency

 

Lmao I get 5k on rears and 7-10 for fronts. 50k is a fantasy

 

It's not the profile it's the tread compound, how soft is it? Never heard of a passenger tire having more than 10/32nds tread depth especially a low profile tire.
You have know idea how many miles you can get from these tires as the tread is softest & the least stable when new. The second half should last longer when the tread blocks are shorter & therefore less prone to squirming while cornering. Insure that the tires wear evenly across the entire tread surface & they may last as long as the warranty.