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Third set of Tires in less than 18K and 15 MPG - Related?
So my IS 350 AWD Non F-Sport is coming up on 4 years old. There hasn't been a single reliability issue but I'm going on my third set of tires with only 17,400 miles on the clock. The car has the 18" wheel upgrade with the staggered setup so tire rotation is not possible. The OEM Bridgestone Turanazas were done at 9,300. I installed Michelin PS3+ A/S as their replacement. They only lasted 8,100 and according to the dealer is a "normal condition for this vehicle". Seriously? In addition I'm struggling to get 15 MPG. This is according to the on-board trip computer. Doing the calculation manually yields slightly better results - about 15.5 MPG. Driving is virtually all non-highway (I hesitate to call it "city" driving because it's actually suburbia) but on many roads I do hit highway speeds. I'm starting to wonder if the two issues are related. Perhaps the front end isn't set up correctly? I have Googled the tire wear issue and understand that the IS does go through tires - especially front tires - rather quickly but only 8K? That doesn't seem right to me. I've owned other high-performance cars in my life including Porsche 911's which never went through a set of tires so quickly. I'm going to show my age now . . . in 1988 I bought a Mazda RX-7 Turbo which burned though a set of Goodyear Eagles every 12,000. That was the most "tire hungry" car I've ever owned until now with the IS 350.
When it comes to alignments I'm hesitate to have it done on any of my cars. Alignments are big money makers for an automotive service business and (in my not-so-humble opinion) are largely unnecessary unless you've hit potholes at relatively high speeds or have been in an accident. My last two cars which were kept for 14 years each and never needed to be aligned. I had the alignments checked every few years (by a VERY honest dealership where I used to live) but no adjustment was ever needed. I'm a pretty careful driver and quite good at avoiding potholes and other road hazards. My current Lexus dealer seems pretty honest and told me that they would be happy to perform an alignment but it would likely be a waste of money for me and it won't change the fact that the IS likes to burn through tires quickly.
I sold my 2014 IS350 AWD non F Sport with the 18" wheel upgrade at 16k miles. It was still on the original tires and there was enough life left on them to certify it without having to replace the tires.
In my time with the IS, I averaged about 17-19 mpg.
If the dealer says it's a normal condition on the vehicle, then my car must be highly abnormal. My 16 350F still has the factory Turanzas. 16,100 on the clock, 70% city, 30% highway. As you can see they still got a ways to go. 21.6 mpg over its life so far. It's rear drive but I can't see that being the determining factor especially with that large of a difference.
You should be able to get an alignment done for just over $100 at the dealer. I had some inner tire wear due to alignment being off, and I swear the car tracks a lot straighter on the highway and when braking now. Cheaper than a set of tires.
Thanks to everyone for your replies so far. My appointment to get the new tires installed is tomorrow. I'm going to request they at least check the alignment. I do drive it kind of aggressively, especially when it comes to acceleration and cornering but based on the replies so far there's no way I should be getting this kind of tire wear and disappointing MPG. It's not like I go drifting when the mall closes . . . anymore . . . not in at least 10 years now.
so why were the previous sets replaced, was it because the tread was all the way down or was it worn on the inside. Tires should not be wearing out that quickly. Are your tire pressures ok too?
Thanks to everyone for your replies so far. My appointment to get the new tires installed is tomorrow. I'm going to request they at least check the alignment. I do drive it kind of aggressively, especially when it comes to acceleration and cornering but based on the replies so far there's no way I should be getting this kind of tire wear and disappointing MPG. It's not like I go drifting when the mall closes . . . anymore . . . not in at least 10 years now.
Your honesty is too much.
Yeah I would say I normally baby my car, but maybe a couple of times a month I'll bomb down a back road or two. Thus, my experience with tire wear has been an outlier in that I still have the stock Turanzas on my car after close to 18k. Can't say I've ever done the whole parking lot drifting thing, unless there's snow on the ground that is...
22K miles here and still on the stock Turanza with about 4/32" left. Summer is coming so I can safely drive it down to 2/32" without an issue.
You may want to try a harder compound tires, but it does sound like you are an aggressive driver. Put her in ECO mode and drive like a grandma for two weeks, and see if your MPG goes up.
we get 20mpg on 95% city miles and driving very conservatively in eco mode. 15mpg wouldn't be very hard to do if you have more than the occasional heavy foot in mostly non-highway driving. Flooring the throttle really kills MPG.
Many thanks for your continue replies everyone, it is VERY appreciated! My car is at the dealer right now. They loaned me an '18 ES for the day. So back to my IS 350 - I tried to get them to "check" the alignment but they fought me on that saying it's something they either do or not. I bit the bullet and told them to go ahead and do it. They are nailing me for $159.95 which is on the higher side for the procedure but I can't complain because of the price they gave me for the tires. With installation, alignment and the four Michelin Pilot Sport 3+ A/S's the bill is still under $930.00! Different parts of the country will of course have different pricing but for the East Coast I feel this is a fair price. The service advisor also stated that getting an alignment at this point will go a long way to making a warrantee claim should this set of tires wear pre-maturely.
I drive in normal mode most of the time. I switch to sport mode whenever I'm at a red light and there's some snarky kid revving his BMW or Audi (probably gifted to him by his parents) like he wants to have a go at me. Unless it's an "M" (BMW) or "S" (Audi) they always loose and quite badly too! I have occasionally even beaten the "M" and "S" cars when the drivers behind those wheels loose their nerve and give up after about 80 MPH - LOL! I have tried eco mode but don't last more than a day or two. It's just my nature I guess. By the way, while I fully admit to driving somewhat aggressively, I always do so in a "safe" manner. For instance, I never weave, I never cut anyone off and I always wear my seatbelt. I guess I need to just put it in eco mode and put a piece of 3M Blue Painter's Tape across the **** just to remind me not to push it.
In regards to drifting - and I'm really going to show my age again - I never went drifting in my IS350. Seriously. I don't think I could even get this car to break traction since it's full-time AWD. I imagine it's possible if you turn off the traction controls and anti-skid program but I'm not going to try it. It was very easy to do back in my Mazda RX-7 days. I had an '85 GS and then an '88 Turbo. Both cars had rear wheel drive and 5-speed manuals. Back then it wasn't even called drifting, it was known as a "power slide". I think the term drifting came along with the "Fast and Furious" movies. I never when drifting when I had the Porsche 911 because the cost of replacement tires was downright scary - especially the rear set!
Many thanks for your continued replies everyone, it is VERY appreciated! My car is at the dealer right now. They loaned me a '18 ES for the day. So back to my IS 350 - I tried to get them to "check" the alignment but they fought me on that saying it's something they either do or not. I bit the bullet and told them to go ahead and do it. They are nailing me for $159.95 which is on the higher side for the procedure but I can't complain because of the price they gave me for the tires. With installation, alignment and the four Michelin Pilot Sport 3+ A/S's the bill is still under $930.00! Different parts of the country will of course have different pricing but for the East Coast I feel this is a fair price. The service advisor also stated that getting an alignment at this point will go a long way to making a warrantee claim should this set of tires wear pre-maturely.
I drive in normal mode most of the time. I switch to sport mode whenever I'm at a red light and there's some snarky kid revving his BMW or Audi (probably gifted to him by his parents) like he wants to have a go at me. Unless it's an "M" (BMW) or "S" (Audi) they always loose and quite badly too! I have occasionally even beaten the "M" and "S" cars when the drivers behind those wheels loose their nerve and give up after about 80 MPH - LOL! I have tried eco mode but don't last more than a day or two. It's just my nature I guess. By the way, while I fully admit to driving somewhat aggressively, I always do so in a "safe" manner. For instance, I never weave, I never cut anyone off and I always wear my seatbelt. I guess I need to just put it in eco mode and put a piece of 3M Blue Painter's Tape across the **** just to remind me not to push it.
In regards to drifting - and I'm really going to show my age again - I never went drifting in my IS 350. Seriously. I don't think I could even get this car to break traction since it's full-time AWD. I imagine it's possible if you turn off the traction controls and anti-skid program but I'm not going to try it. It was very easy to do back in my Mazda RX-7 days. I had an '85 GS and then an '88 Turbo. Both cars had rear wheel drive and 5-speed manuals. Back then it wasn't even called drifting, it was known as a "power slide". I think the term drifting came along with the "Fast and Furious" movies. I never when drifting when I had the Porsche 911 because the cost of replacement tires was downright scary - especially the rear set!
Many thanks for your continued replies everyone, it is VERY appreciated! My car is at the dealer right now. They loaned me a '18 ES for the day. So back to my IS 350 - I tried to get them to "check" the alignment but they fought me on that saying it's something they either do or not. I bit the bullet and told them to go ahead and do it. They are nailing me for $159.95 which is on the higher side for the procedure but I can't complain because of the price they gave me for the tires. With installation, alignment and the four Michelin Pilot Sport 3+ A/S's the bill is still under $930.00! Different parts of the country will of course have different pricing but for the East Coast I feel this is a fair price. The service advisor also stated that getting an alignment at this point will go a long way to making a warrantee claim should this set of tires wear pre-maturely.
I drive in normal mode most of the time. I switch to sport mode whenever I'm at a red light and there's some snarky kid revving his BMW or Audi (probably gifted to him by his parents) like he wants to have a go at me. Unless it's an "M" (BMW) or "S" (Audi) they always loose and quite badly too! I have occasionally even beaten the "M" and "S" cars when the drivers behind those wheels loose their nerve and give up after about 80 MPH - LOL! I have tried eco mode but don't last more than a day or two. It's just my nature I guess. By the way, while I fully admit to driving somewhat aggressively, I always do so in a "safe" manner. For instance, I never weave, I never cut anyone off and I always wear my seatbelt. I guess I need to just put it in eco mode and put a piece of 3M Blue Painter's Tape across the **** just to remind me not to push it.
In regards to drifting - and I'm really going to show my age again - I never went drifting in my IS350. Seriously. I don't think I could even get this car to break traction since it's full-time AWD. I imagine it's possible if you turn off the traction controls and anti-skid program but I'm not going to try it. It was very easy to do back in my Mazda RX-7 days. I had an '85 GS and then an '88 Turbo. Both cars had rear wheel drive and 5-speed manuals. Back then it wasn't even called drifting, it was known as a "power slide". I think the term drifting came along with the "Fast and Furious" movies. I never when drifting when I had the Porsche 911 because the cost of replacement tires was downright scary - especially the rear set!
Good. And yeah it's probably nigh-impossible to drift the AWD IS without snow or ice.
so why were the previous sets replaced, was it because the tread was all the way down or was it worn on the inside. Tires should not be wearing out that quickly. Are your tire pressures ok too?
Same question to OP. What was the condition of your tires when they were replaced?
My OEM tires lasted about 30,000 km before the insides of the front tires starting wearing out. The rears probably had another 10,000 km on them, but I hated the stock Bridgestones tires anyway. Ended up replacing with set of Pirelli P Zero A/S+ tires, which are infinetely better.
Many thanks for your continued replies everyone, it is VERY appreciated! My car is at the dealer right now. They loaned me a '18 ES for the day. So back to my IS 350 - I tried to get them to "check" the alignment but they fought me on that saying it's something they either do or not. I bit the bullet and told them to go ahead and do it. They are nailing me for $159.95 which is on the higher side for the procedure but I can't complain because of the price they gave me for the tires. With installation, alignment and the four Michelin Pilot Sport 3+ A/S's the bill is still under $930.00! Different parts of the country will of course have different pricing but for the East Coast I feel this is a fair price. The service advisor also stated that getting an alignment at this point will go a long way to making a warrantee claim should this set of tires wear pre-maturely.
I drive in normal mode most of the time. I switch to sport mode whenever I'm at a red light and there's some snarky kid revving his BMW or Audi (probably gifted to him by his parents) like he wants to have a go at me. Unless it's an "M" (BMW) or "S" (Audi) they always loose and quite badly too! I have occasionally even beaten the "M" and "S" cars when the drivers behind those wheels loose their nerve and give up after about 80 MPH - LOL! I have tried eco mode but don't last more than a day or two. It's just my nature I guess. By the way, while I fully admit to driving somewhat aggressively, I always do so in a "safe" manner. For instance, I never weave, I never cut anyone off and I always wear my seatbelt. I guess I need to just put it in eco mode and put a piece of 3M Blue Painter's Tape across the **** just to remind me not to push it.
In regards to drifting - and I'm really going to show my age again - I never went drifting in my IS350. Seriously. I don't think I could even get this car to break traction since it's full-time AWD. I imagine it's possible if you turn off the traction controls and anti-skid program but I'm not going to try it. It was very easy to do back in my Mazda RX-7 days. I had an '85 GS and then an '88 Turbo. Both cars had rear wheel drive and 5-speed manuals. Back then it wasn't even called drifting, it was known as a "power slide". I think the term drifting came along with the "Fast and Furious" movies. I never when drifting when I had the Porsche 911 because the cost of replacement tires was downright scary - especially the rear set!
Really, you sound like a dumb kid racing around on the roads and flooring it all the time. Gotta pay to play...if you don't want to go through tires every 8000 miles, don't drive like a boy racer.
You should be able to get an alignment done for just over $100 at the dealer. I had some inner tire wear due to alignment being off, and I swear the car tracks a lot straighter on the highway and when braking now. Cheaper than a set of tires.
There'd be ample signs if alignment is off. Also drive slowly on flat road without touching steering wheel. Does the car go straight? Any sign of unusual wear on tires? Or OP always drives like maniac, LOL?
04-23-18, 10:05 AM
Third set of Tires in less than 18K and 15 MPG - Related?
