My daughter's 2007 Cooper (Automatic) has 16,000 km on it. The Continental run flats on the rear are down to the "end of life" indicators, with even wear across the tire. The front tires are in very good shape, with oodles of tread. No, we have not switched tires front to rear!

Seems very odd to me.... any ideas as to why? .... inflation, allignment, defect?

thanks, Frank

 

I have run flats and have been told to expect as little as 15K out of them. Seems some get 20 or 25K but that is rare. I have 9K on mine and they still have plenty left although I can tell they are wearing.

So, getting only 16K would not be unusual. However, the rear wearing that much faster than the front is weird. Are you 100% sure that no body has rotated them? Had the car in for service where maybe they rotated them without you knowing it? It's hard to image how they could wear that much fasted than than the front. It doesn't make sense.

 

Have definitely not had the tires rotated... as the car has not been in for any service (purchased in Dec 2007). To confirm, the excessive wear was after 16,000 kilometers (metric in Canada) or about 10,000 miles. I agree it makes no sense for the rears to wear way faster than the fronts.

Frank

 

There's lots of posts all over NAM about runflat tire noise, premature wear, stiff ride. etc..., but I've never heard of rear tires wearing faster than front tires on a FWD car. If you go over to the "Tires" forum you'll get lots of advice on aftermarket tires if you want to swap out the runflats. I rotate my tires every 5k miles. The fronts and backs looked pretty much the same as far as treadwear after 5k, but I don't have the runflats.

 

Seems odd to have the rears wear first! However sounds like you would have done much better had you rotated them. Continentals have a very high milage rating compared to some check out tire rack. I was told runflats dont do very well but I should see 20-22k out of them if I rotate them.

This is the first front wheel drive car I've had that having a flat on the rear affected the handeling, wonder if it would have been any different had I had a doughnut on the rear.

Wonder if the regular tires do better, I use to get 60k on my 75vw rabbit.

 

I have the Dunlap RFs with 22k miles, rotated at 16K and have 2-3mm tread left to the replace bar on the worst 2 (rears now, were fronts). I think it's very odd to have the rears wear to the bar at 10k miles. Looks like I'll get another 5k miles out of these.

 

she was probably doin 180s and slidin around

its real fun in a mini

 

Maybe she's been out drifting.... Can a Mini do drifting?

 

I was at the dealership ~ 5 weeks ago w/ a guy who experience similar problems. I talked to him and I'm not sure of the validity of this or not but he described that the rear tires can't be adjusted very well ( I think he was talking about the camber etc during an alignment) and that he burned through his rear tires excessively fast and now he was there getting the aftermarket lower control arms put on so that the wheels can be better aligned.

Man that's a long run on sentence and I don't care as long as I am making any sense here?

 

Thanks - your reply makes sense - I'll check out the control arms when the cars is on the hoist next week.

Frank