# Tire Wear only seen on my winter set



## Trickman (Jun 11, 2006)

This is what my winter tires look like after a few seasons:


















I inflated them to factory gti specs, 42 rear 33 front. I also inflate my summer tires to the same spec and see no uneven wear. It looks like the winters are over inflated, but anyone else have an explanation why this is happening with the winters and not with the summers?


----------



## waabaah (Jun 24, 2006)

Yes. I have a explanation. 

The winter tires are super soft. Q speed rated. This soft rating flexes more while spinning. Do you drive highway speeds? This might explain the center wearing quicker. 

You may want to get done new tread next season. Those blizzacks are shot. Anything less then 6/32nds is not ideal for snow/mud. A summer tire should be replaced at 2/32nds and a new tire has roughly around 10/32nds. 

So you can see that a winter tire with half tread is considered garbage for snow traction.


----------



## afawal2012 (Jan 9, 2013)

Trickman said:


> This is what my winter tires look like after a few seasons:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I would also say they are over inflated. Did you get that kind of wear in the front, back or all 4?

42 psi seems very high, and might even be higher than the maximum pressure recommended by the tire manufacturer for that tire. It should say right on the tire what the max inflation pressure is. I'm surprised that's factory..... Would you mind taking a pic of the sticker in your driver's side door? I'm always used to seeing the same inflation pressure on all 4 tires.


----------



## waabaah (Jun 24, 2006)

NOT op's sticker but its for a jetta 1.8t that is very close to OP's tire inflation chart. Interesting note is that it says MAX load pressure. I would assume load is 5 people in car and full gas tank. 

Reason I assume 5 people and full gas tank is because alignments ask for that same weight. 150 pounds for each seat and gas tank full. 

I think I've even seen a mk4 hatch have a higher sticker once. I remember the customer very well when I was a tech since he would always check his rear psi and comeback in showing me his sticker which was what I thought extremely high. I then would show him the tire with max psi and we would always get into this weird conversation of who's right. The tire or the car manufacturer? 

I would agree tread wear does look overinflated. I would also agree that you should bump down the pressures maybe even to 30 front 35 rear or something. I would assume the tires wear is telling more about your grip then what the manufacturer can predict.


----------



## afawal2012 (Jan 9, 2013)

waabaah said:


> NOT op's sticker but its for a jetta 1.8t that is very close to OP's tire inflation chart. Interesting note is that it says MAX load pressure. I would assume load is 5 people in car and full gas tank.
> 
> Reason I assume 5 people and full gas tank is because alignments ask for that same weight. 150 pounds for each seat and gas tank full.
> 
> ...


That would be my assumption as well for "Max Load", because when you load up the car most of the weight is in the back not the front (passengers and trunk). So you shouldn't need to inflate your rear tires to 40+ psi if you're not loaded all the time.

I've personally ran all my tires between 32 and 35 psi all the time, both winter and summer, 15" and 17", depending on the tire and what kind of feel I wanted. Never had an issue with over inflation wear. Some tires will wear differently than others, even with the same inflation pressure.

I'm surprised you're not seeing the same on your summer set. So yeah, drop the pressure of the rears to low 30's and you should be fine.


----------

