Needed new tires at 26000 miles.

Well do you trust the maintenance guy ??? 30k in normal driving and road condition is a little early but not impossible.

replace all is probably the right thing to do but 26k is really early I have over 40k and the tires still have life in them you can check yourself at the wearing points .. all tires I think have them when those little bumps are on the surface the tire is kind of done ... (maybe a few more thousand after that ...

What made your tire wear this quickly .... hard to tell but rough roads would be the first suspect ..(hard driving usually the second but do not expect that with a prius hardly a muscle car.)

 

What tires came with the car? OEM tires have less tread life than regular tires. I had the Yokohama Avid S33D and only had 32000 miles with even tread wear and 5k mile rotations when I was down to 4/32 and needed to replace. So your dealer was probably right.

 

Have them measure the tread depth with you are there. If they are less than 4/32nds then replace all of them before winter.

 

well that is all nice ... remember they make money to replace YOUR tires ... so at the end sooner or later they make that money anyway ... you and your husband should make the decisions ... any one of you actually checked the tires ??

 

I suspect low tp. My dealer recommended tire replacement at the last oil change. Maybe next time.

 

+1

Unless the nail is in a sidewall, it's reparable at $10 or less.

If one doesn't want to be taken advantage of, one should educate oneself.

Lately, I found that tire places are not interested in fixing tires, but rather selling tires, and I learned how to plug up nail holes myself at the cost of $1 a plug.

 

Better yet, she should measure it herself. I have found dealers tread depth measurements to be "inaccurate", to put it politely. That said, if they had 26,000 miles going into winter, they were might have been close to the 4/32 minimum often recommend. I hate to think what the dealer price was under those circumstances.

 

I had a blowout at 70 mpr on a road trip, the other three tires looked good, but the set had about 40k on them, I bought 4 new tires at Costco (the blowout was only 5 miles from a Costco.) I don't like buying tires from a dealer, I trust Costco.

 

It does sound like you got talked into a new set of tires, but it depends. At this point unfortunately, it depends mainly on the credibility of your tire guy. Nails are usually in trapped in the tread, and usually repairable. A sidewall tear or bulge is more likely a write-off.

A typical new tire starts out with 9/32" to 10/32" tread depth. Minimum safe tread depth is debatable. Legally it's 2/32", but various safety authorities suggest 5/32" minimum.

That minimum should considered with the tire and the weather conditions. If you're heading into winter in a colder climate, with so-so all seasons aproaching 5/32", that's a good time to replace, unless you've got a separate set of snow tires.

You can pick up a tread depth gage for $2~5, to be aware for yourself where the tread depth is, and help plan future purchases.

 

If a person cares about gas mileage, they should carry a list of LRR tires in order of preference in their car in case they need to buy tires unexpectedly. The subject has been thoroughly covered in other threads.

Your average car dealer serviceperson is going to push what they have in stock and gets them the biggest commission, not necessarily the tire that meets your desires.