Any ideas why rear tires are wearing so quickly even with proper 35 psi and no drag racing?

Took delivery of Chrome silver 350Z Touring 6 speed on Labor day 9/3/2002.

This first set of rear OEM RE04's lasted 11900 miles and were replaced on 11/7/2003. I replace these with Bridgestone S03's. Yesterday on 7/19/2003 I replaced the fronts with S03's at 15,600 miles.

The rear tires have only 3700 miles are down to only 3/32 out of 10/32 in the center tread.

I called Bridgestone directly and I get the standard answer, you either have the wrong air pressure [NO WAY] or you drive to fast.

Well I do drive fast but no wheelies and not enough to wear the center tread at 3700 miles.

Does anybody else have the same problem ?
Can it possibly be a rear suspension problem ?

Help
Thanks Rick

 

bridgestones arent the tires you want to go with if you're looking for longetivity IMO. i don't think it's your driving style, or the wrong PSI, i just think these tires wear incredibly fast. don't get me wrong, they are AWESOME tires, esp. the s03s, but they wear very quickly. the set on my bmw lasted <15k with rotations at 3k intervals.

you should look into another brand tire. there are many tires out there with wear ratings above 260 that you should look into. IE. toyo, BFG.

 

i had a similar problem on my tires, and now run about 32 cold pressure.

 

11 & 15k miles on re040s and s03's is a good amount of life. remember you're not driving a car with crappy tires that are rated for 60k + miles.

higher performance tires will have a shorter lifespan ... deal with it. i'm on my 6th set of rears in 1.5 years (32k miles). one of the prices you pay for driving a sports car with grippy tires.

 

I remarked one time to a friend about the low tread-life of my Z tires, and he replied that it is normal for performance tires that have a soft compound.

If you want longer tread-life you should switch to All-Season tires like the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S, which comes in the right size for the Z.

EDIT: You mentioned that you only put on 3700 miles on your S03 ... that seems kinda odd. I have 7000+ miles on my original OEM RE040 tires and they still look good. Something is not right, your rear tires are definitely wearing too excessively.

10k miles for a performance tire is acceptable, 3k though is not.

 

I had the almost identical milage figures for my 3 sets of rears - finally after the last alignment (extended tire feathering warrenty) I can visually see less toe in on the rear / \ and tire wear both front and rear has drastically changed - I used to be able to see rolled pieces of rubber on the rears, com[plained to the dealers several times, their comment was "stop doing those long smokey burnouts" - my reply was don't go there - I commute highway 65 miles a day, not breaking the rear ties loose much at 80 mph - - long story short - insist on a 4-wheel alignment and pay special attention to the amout of rear toe-in - - car ahndles totally different, maybe a little more vague than before - but the tire purchases were killing me - good luck

 

Theres 20k miles on my rears now, and they still look great using the penny test.

 

Performance tires wear out pretty fast... it's scarying me too~~

 

I have the original tires on mine and I have 24k on them ,they are just now ready for replacement.

 

Michelin Pilot Sport A/S here with 6k miles center mostly worn out 1 wheel worse than the other so now I am start to think its the alignment but I always take fast corner turning left so it might contribute to the fast worn out on the rear driver side. No more expensive tires for me since they wear out just as fast.

 

if the center of your tire treads wear first, lower you tire pressures. the tires are "bulging" too much in the middle

 

My stock RE40s lasted 20,000 with heavy wear. I switched to Proxies T1-S and saw my rears last a little less than 15,000. I had abnormal wear with the proxies because I took over a month to get my wheels aligned after lowering the car with springs. The fronts are still good but I'm on my second set of T1-S for the rear.

Even with hard daily driving and canyon runs I'm seeing 15k to 20k of treadlife. It should be about 20k to 25k if you're nursemaiding your Z.

If you're only getting 3,000 mi, something is definitely wrong. When was the last time you had an alignment done? I would bet Sz28r is right, you're having alignment problems. If it was recent and your tire pressure is right, you need to call Brigestone again.

 

My rears are only half worn at 10k. Then I found out that my toe setting in the rear was off, which explained why the outside edge wore a little faster then the inside edge. Even so, I expect to get at least 20k out of the rear on normal city/fwy driving.

I basically figure it costs us roughly $0.05/mi to run tires like these.