Replacing Tyre on it's own or as matching Axle pair

kitkat9933

kitkat9933

kitkat9933

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So for the 4th time in 12 months, another pothole has destroyed one of my front tyres. This time on council land, so time to start a claim.

Car is brand new as are tyres. About 700 miles on them only. Tyre is 255/35/R21 98W XL T1 on a Tesla Model Y Perf. Can I get away with replacing one? or should I be replacing the matching front pair?
 
Yeah a few hundred miles is nothing in tyre terms unless you have some crazy heavy wear. The people I use most for car maintenance advise anything up to around 10% percentage points difference in tyre health is OK (which depending on tyre is somewhere in the thousands of miles) - beyond that you start to get noticeable difference in braking effectiveness, etc. between the tyres (apparently) - not sure at what point it actually makes a significant difference though.

EDIT: Most people I know will happily change out one tyre with 10s of thousands of miles difference to the others though if they get a puncture, etc. one of the ones on my dad's car is well out from the others and I can't notice it - while even as a passenger I could tell when one of their tyres was a few PSI low LOL.

In general it is a bit of bugbear for me - I hate having mixed tyre models on a car and will always at the minimum change both on an axel if I can't get the same original tyre and/or is too far out mileage wise.

EDIT: Googling it the official line from several brands is max 2mm difference in tread depth which is probably around 10K miles on your average tyre.
 
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Jeez, you are cursed :(

700 miles - don't bother. A quick look at black circles and decent tyres of that size are ~£250 and I guess your make is one of the £300 ones. I can think of better things to spend that on.
 
I've done 300 miles on my new set and not even worn off the markings on them, it's fine to swap one with that mileage.
 
sigma said:
35 is rubber band profile isn't it? Maybe even buy some smaller wheels.
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I do notice it that friends/family on modern cars with large rims and low profile tyres seem to relatively frequently getting pothole damage or punctures - hopefully not speaking too soon but I've only ever had one puncture so far and that was due to driving through debris after an accident :( and though it would probably have happened on any vehicle funny enough was on the lowest profile tyres of anything I've owned.
 
The hardness of the tyre will affect it more than simply the profile.

I bought a car with Goodyear excellence run flats, kept on getting punctures and replacing the individual, eventually got fed up and swapped them for Goodyear Eagle F1 run flats, same profile, and no more pops ever again.

Some tyres are absolutely dreadful on our roads.
 
Rroff said:
I do notice it that friends/family on modern cars with large rims and low profile tyres seem to relatively frequently getting pothole damage or punctures - hopefully not speaking too soon but I've only ever had one puncture so far and that was due to driving through debris after an accident :( and though it would probably have happened on any vehicle funny enough was on the lowest profile tyres of anything I've owned.
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Oh, my 30s shake my whole being even in the softest suspension setting in any pothole. It’s felt like kerbing the alloy hard a few times. I’ve been lucky so far, but try hard not to hit any potholes. My tyres desperately need changing, but I’ll wait until the roads improve.

Definitely don’t do what the last owner did and just change one tyre when most of the others must have been at least half worn. As a result they’ve all worn horrendously unevenly. It’ll be like a new car when they get changed and aligned.
 
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CaptainRAVE said:
Definitely don’t do what the last owner did and just change one tyre when most of the others must have been at least half worn. As a result they’ve all worn horrendously unevenly. It’ll be like a new car when they get changed.
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I had a courtesy vehicle recently where the tyres were all different brands/models varying between 1.6mm (ish) through to about 5mm - I would not want to be driving that regularly - I'm guessing they just stuck on end of life tyres taken off other vehicles to use them up or something.
 
Rroff said:
I had a courtesy vehicle recently where the tyres were all different brands/models varying between 1.6mm (ish) through to about 5mm - I would not want to be driving that regularly - I'm guessing they just stuck on end of life tyres taken off other vehicles to use them up or something.
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At least they kept the brand the same on mine.
 
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I had 225/40/18 wheels and tyres on my Focus and the rims were bashed time and again to the point I have now gone to 16" wheels.
In all that potholing none of the tyres suffered and I am sure it was because they were all XL rated- Even the hit that bent the outer rim of wheel didn't damage the tyre.
I did claim years ago from council who kept refusing to take responsibilty untill I put "malfeasance and negligence" in a sentence and within three day got a reply they would cough up. Sure enough £300 for one wheel and tyre.
 
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