Can A Car Tire Last 100,000 Miles? Tire Wear Explained!

The Science Behind Tire Wear & How Engineers Design for Longevity
Big thanks to Continental for sponsoring this video!

The instant a tire meets the road, it triggers one of the most complex interactions that occurs in the realm of automotive engineering. Not only how a tire generates grip, but even more so how it wears, is a wildly complicated and equally fascinating subject. This video will provide clarity on the subject of tire wear.

I spent time at multiple Continental proving grounds, on various test tracks, and had discussions with quite a few engineers, to help answer the following questions:
1. What is tire wear, and how does it work?
2. What are the main contributing factors to tire wear?
3. What is the ideal vehicle for minimizing tire wear?
4. How can you design a tire to last a long time?
5. What do you know how long a tire will last?
6. Could a tire last 100,000 miles?

The tire we’ll use to help answer these questions is the TrueContact Tour54, which is Continental’s longest lasting tire sold today, with up to an 80,000 mile warranty.

Don't forget to check out my other pages below!

[EngineeringExplained]

This includes any of the tires I've recently discussed on the channel (ExtremeContact Sport 02, ExtremeContact DWS06+, TrueContact Tour54, Viking Contact 7, and many more)!

[antoniovillanueva]

I have over 400K on my spare. The secret to long tire life is to never let the tire touch the road.

[owaisahmed]

I’m an Automotive Engineer who made it through my master's degree thanks to your videos, and now I work in R&D at Continental Tires (for over 8 years now). I wish I would've known you were visiting, would have been great to have a meet and greet!

[slode]

I surprised that inflation pressure was not touched on. That can have a pretty big impact on tire wear.

[jaredstearns]

I'm a mechanical engineer and have worked on cars all my life, and this guy still teaches me something new with every video I watch!

[webx]

Holly cow! I've never seen them actually explain rolling friction and wear except to say "there's some deformation that occurs". Now it makes a lot more sense.

[tuna]

Finally, more tire content. I was waiting for this.

[PeterPanarchy]

I used to work at Discount Tire 10+ years ago and there was one specific tire I saw last over 100k numerous times. The Michelin LTX A/S used to be the OE tire on full size Rams and it wasn't uncommon for them to come in for their first set of new tires at or around 100k. The most I've ever seen was 120k, and even that set had a 3-4/32" remaining.

[RUSure]

30+ years as tire/alignment tech.
Excellent information, I agree with all of it, and learned a thing or two also.

[antoniogallo]

As a Subjective Test Driver for the tire industry I found your video very interesting and well made as usual.
I mainly work for the EU market and I can tell how different our market is compared to the North American one.

Everytime I test 'ECO' products specifically developed for the North American market the performances are way way lower than the equivalent EU product, both for longitudinal and lateral grip, with a serious compromise towards wet grip and overall handling.
The blanket is short and pulling it so much towards such long wear will inevitably heavily compromise wet performances to begin with.
In the EU a summer tire lasting 40.000/50.000 real kms (hardly 30k miles) is already well done usually, driving happily it will be waaay less than that.
Of course the standards, customer expectations (mainly from premium brands such as Conti) and needs between EU and N. America are different, but this always fascinated me.

Another great difference is the American all weather tire vs the EU all season products, just looking at it and its grooves I would never say that the long lasting tire you showed would be suitable for snow/ice, I guess it will mostly just not crystallize as early as a summer tire but I would never dare to drive with that on real snow expecting any decent grip.

If you would ever need somebody of my kind for collaborations feel free to get in touch, it would be a real honor and exciting opportunity, I could share with you my Linkedin if you like xD

Antonio

[Jeremy_Fielding]

Great video. As an engineer and Youtuber, I think a good follow-up would be - How "bad" is a budget tire? - Some buyers don't care about performance. They just want to get back on the road. Knowing there is probably some minimum safety requirement, I would love to know which factors impact cost the most, and how tire engineers optimize the design for cost. That could be compared to optimizing for speed, or whatever. But these are all interesting engineering questions I think.

[ragdolltrucking]

i would like to point out that tire warranties are pro rated, so if your tires last 76k miles it doesnt mean you get a free set it would mean you get a 5 percent discount, thats the real reason tire warranties are so high, tire companies are fine with giving up to a 30 percent discount (does buy 3 get one free sound familiar?) in exchange for repeat customers

[nickkatsoulakis]

I couldn’t agree more about tires being the most important factor in vehicle performance. Changed tires on my GS350 from cheap Toyos to Michelin Pilot Sport All Seasons and it completely transformed the car and it handles so much better now. Great video. Super interesting

[christiannasca]

The front tires of my Smart fortwo mhd did indeed last 140000 km (=88000 miles). And at that point they still had 2.5 mm of tread depth.
I mostly drove it on highways commuting to work.

[jacobrzeszewski]

I had a Focus SE with factory Continentals and got 60k out of them with 3/32 still on them. Close to the legal limit but not bald. And even after 8 years of use they still had acceptable grip on dry pavement.

[benigo]

This video gives a clear rebuttal to the many articles claiming an electric cars weight is what is wearing out their tires in 6, 000 miles. If the biggest factor in tire wear is how the vehicle is driven then it is the drivers enjoying “all that electric torque” that is wearing out their tires not the extra weight of batteries.

[Natural]

If I have to pay a shop 1-2 times per year for tire rotations to have proper documentation for warranty, I'll spend a considerable portion of the actual warranty value on shop service rather than if I did the same rotations at home. As someone who switches from summer to winter wheels in their driveway seasonally, I've never found tire warranties to be useful.

[dougrobinson]

I've put over 100K miles on Michelin Defender tires on our 2013 Chrysler minivan. Not a light vehicle, and several thousand miles of towing, which is rough on tires. Gentle driving and flat straight Midwest roads helps a lot. Careful attention to tire pressure and regular rotation are important as well.

[kevink]

Welcome back Jason. The illustration showing contact between tire & pavement helps explain "feathering wear", that results in tire noise. Slipping at the trailing tread block causes local wear there, as that edge lifts off the pavement. I have always bought non-directional tires, and rotated them in an X pattern, always reversing the direction of rotation, and reversing the feathering wear.

[gregp.]

Great video and insight into tires. Thanks EE and Continental for making this happen!