So I'm on my way to work this morning and suddenly I hear...click click click click, coming from my right rear tire followed a minute or so later by my TPMS (glad they work) lighting up.

Well I head straight to my local and long time mechanic. We look at it together and sure enough a screw is lodged into the tread about a cm from the wall. I say to him, quote me a new tire to which he quickly responds, "is this AWD"? and I say yes.

To make a long story short, do I have to replace all 4 (OEM Goodyear Eagle RS-A) tires? He is calling Infiniti to ask them.
The car just has 29,000km on it. The 2 fronts have 7/32 and the 2 rears have 5/32

If I am sticking with AS tires should I switch from the RS-A to something better for this car? Is the Michelin Pilot better...I'm open to sugestions.
I have snow tires for the winter so should I consider summer tires. Do they wear longer than AS tires?

Thanks

 

Well it is recommended but since your front tires are at 7/32nd than you should be fine with getting two new tires. The reason it is recommended to get all four tires on an all wheel drive is because if you put one new tire on the car and the other three are pretty worn than you start to confuse the transfer case and it gets all screwed up and in the long run it will just destroy it. I work at Discount Tire so this happens everyday.

 

also if you got the screw in the sidewall, its not repairable but if its in the tread it is. also long as you arent roadracing or autoxing it, then a plug should be perfectly safe.

 

Have him take it apart and check it from the inside and see if there are steel belts where the screw went through, if there are than you can fix it, if there aren't than it is no good.

 

^ He says it's too close to the wall so he shouldn't and won't fix it. He has patched tires for me in the past so I know he would if he felt it was safe to do so.

What is a better AS, wear wise, than these Eagle RS-A's? I would be happy with a harder compound AS tire since I have snow tires for the winter any way.

 

^^ Paul, I'd go with what Mr. Discount Tire says and replace only the rears...and IMO the Mich's would be superior to the RSA's, though they will be more spendy. I've only ever had one GY tire I liked and I don't think the Wrangler AT-S would look good on your G.

 

well the harder the compound the harder the ride. There are a lot of tires that you can choose from. A tire that I have put on many G sedans are the Yokohama YK520, they last a good amount of time and everyone seems to like them.

 

^-1
compound has nothing to do with a "hard ride" aspect ratio and PSI have WAY more to do with it, and also side wall construction.


summer tires usually ride stiffer then all seasons because they have stiffer sidewalls for better cornering performance, yet they almost always have softer compound.

if you are looking for a good allseason performance tire,
check out the continental DWS, its a new tire. its the only ultra high performance alseason tire with a tread ware warranty. (50k)
i used these to replace a max performance summer tire and i am very happy with the performance that i get out of this all season tire.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....emeContact+DWS