I was one of the lucky ones......I got 28K on my original 18" Pilot Sports on my '03 coupe.

I replaced them with the same. Now at 10K miles on the new tires I am told the fronts are fiine with 6/32 of tread left but the rears are just about gone with 1/32 of tread left. WTF? How did this happen? The car is aligned and all wear is even and no tire roar...no nothing... but quick rear tire wear??

Any ideas???

 

Hmmm.... sounds like they must be different compounds. On your first set you got exceptionally high mileage. Sounds like much more than average (more than anyone I've read or talked to) and your next set was lower than average. Did you develop a lead foot as soon as they were changed?

For comparison sake I have 13.5 k miles on mine and the rears are pretty well on the wear bars. I have not measured them accurately but believe my fronts have another 3-4k miles left on them.

 

Michelin Pilot Sports should last a lot longer than
that. On your tires is a treadwear figure that should
read 240 if not you didn't get what you paid for.
How much air are you running in those tires? I don't
ever run more than 37 lbs regardless of what the
tires have written on them........LOL Call the TireRack
and ask them about the wear factor.

 

I can TOTALLY relate. I got ~35,000 miles off my first set of Pilot sports. I switched to BFG G-force and my first set burnt through the rears in about 8,000 miles. I got the rears replaced, and went through those in about 10,000 or so. I figured it must be a BFG thing, and got a fresh set of Pilots, OEM sized (18's on a 2003) and I got them installed and balanced at the dealership. 3,000 miles later. YES. 3,000 miles later, they were down to the belts. I don't race, I don't do burn outs, I don't even turn VDC off. Dealer's reply, "You must've been racing and doing burn outs. That's the only explaination." Long story short, I got another set, with no help in the cost from the dealer, but this time I requested an alignment spec sheet. My current rears are going on about 6,000 miles and look to be wearing fine. If anything, I'm driving this set harder than the last.

It's totally possible that they messed up your alignment on the second set. I'm 100% convinced that the dealer didn't align my tires at all, or at the very least incorrectly when I switched from the BFG's back to the Pilots. I mean, to go through 4 sets of rears in the same time you went through 1? Something seemed odd to me.

Search under my user name for my post on the situation when it originally happened. Good luck getting straight answers. IMO, it's NOT normal, but everybody will say it's everything from the tire to your driving. Never the installation or the alignment.

 

What did you not request the alignment computer print out showing before and after numbers..............standard proceedure.

 

That pretty well confirms my theory the compounds are not at all consistant from the factory, unless you are saying the wear pattern is at fault. 35000 miles from a high performance summer tire is extremely high mileage - more like a normal all season and 3-8k with no hard driving is... well way on the other side of that. The only thing that makes sense is a difference in compounds or misalignment if the wear is extremely uneven.

 

Didn't request an alignment sheet because I didn't know they did that until I started complaining and read some posts on the forums saying to get one. Now I know to request one all the time.

The guy from Infiniti of Chantilly (VA) was a slimey used-car-salesman type who played the "Well you should've been given one, we make sure everyone gets one. These tires wouldn't wear that fast if you were driving on them properly," BS routine. I won't be going there anymore.

As for the wear pattern, it WAS NOT an even wear. The inner edges of both tires were worn to the belts, and the outer edges seemed to have 75-80% tread left. I tried to explain that even if I was "spinning," that it should have worn evenly, and that inner edge wear that bad could only be a result of bad camber or possibly toe alignment. My arguement was of course ignored.

A call to Infiniti Customer Care yielded nothing more than, "Tires aren't warranteed," despite the fact that I tried to explain that I didn't think anything was wrong with the tire, but rather the alignment.

I love my G35, and my parents have owned 2 QX4's and an FX35, but I think having gone through 2 DC/NOVA area dealers, we're moving on to other manufacturers after our respective cars because, and only because the service centers are horrible.

 

I used to live up there, and I had a bad experience with Passport that will never bring me in their door again either. Find a good local mechanic for tire changes and other regular maintenance. If you're up for the drive, do all your major maintenances at Pearson Infiniti in Richmond. Call ahead and compare the prices on the 15K maintenances at NOVA vs. Richmond. I was shocked.