[not Steve] Trac

1) About how many miles should I get out of my factory tires? I have about 35k on them already. I'm not sure which tires they are, car is at the dealership at the moment for service, but they are the standard tires that came on the 1998 1.8T w/o sport package.

2) What is a good reasonably priced snow tire? I only need them for one winter, so I don't want to spend a fortune on them.

eharleq

Please try the archives, this discussion has happened dozens of times.

Rodney

I got 30,000 miles (including 1 autoX before getting track tires/wheels) out of mine. Well, they were at the wear bars at 25,000...I just dragged it out for another 5,000 miles (can you say hydroplane?), and I could still see lines where the tread used to be (well, when they were wet I could). Yeah it was stupid...to push them that far.

How bad were your tires when you replaced them?

Rodney

The non-sport package tires are all seasons, which usually last a lot longer than high performance summer tires. If you've got decent tread left, and you don't live in a snow belt/streets are usually plowed by the time you drive on them, you should be fine. If they're getting close to the wear bars, just get a good set of all season tires unless you want to go to high performance tires, or you get lots of snow and often drive on unplowed/unsalted/unsanded roads, in which case, check Tirerack and your local dealer for wheel/tire specials.

For recomendations, just skim the past couple of pages of posts here and on the tire forum for people's comments.

Pelican Pete

I replaced my SP8000Es at 30k miles, but I am estimating that they only really had 24k miles on them because the previous owner ran snow tires for the winter.

They weren't at the wear bars yet, but I was already experiencing degraded performance (hydroplaning) and a LOT of road noise from them.
The hydroplaning wasn't too bad -- I just slowed down in the rain. But the noise is what made me replace them before the wear bars.
(Come to think of it, I have NEVER waited until reaching the wear bars before replacing a set of tires.)

When I posted this a few months ago, I got a lot of responses from people like Mark (or maybe it WAS Mark who responded) saying that they didn't even get 20k out of the SP8000Es, let alone 25k.

Getting back to jctrac's original question in this thread, he has the NON-sport tires. So 30k miles should be about right. YOu could probably even squeeze another 10k out of them, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Cheap snow tires? Buy used. There are a bunch of ads on this board for people selling snow tires -- usually people who have upgraded to 17" wheels, and are selling their 16" tires.
Some other people just like to experiment with different tires, and try out the new technology.
You might even be able to pick up a set of spare wheels with those snow tires for less than the cost of a set of new tires alone.
If you want a set of new snows, the Firestone Winterfire is the least expensive one you'll find.
It'll get you through the winter, but they are very soft and don't offer much dry weather performance. Get a nice set of H-rated snow tires, and they will probably be better than your stock tires in the wet&dry. You might just want to keep them for more than 1 season. (You could definitely sell them on this board too.)

Cheers,
Peter
98.5 1.8tqms 1 bar
Bridgestone RE730s in the summer, LM22s in the winter

eMKay (BFLO)

Same here, my SP8000E's have alot of life left. I have 30K, previous owner must have used snows

nick n

and they were almost (rotated every 5k) on their wear bars. I liked them though. They performed fairly well. Note that @ 16k I was able to easily break the tail loose in the rain

Hey Peter...where did you get your exasut installed and were you happy with the job?

Dennis H.

I got 20,000 miles on my SP8000 now....I'm am planning to get SP5000 for my next tire

E-Rock

I got 50K out of my 8000Es including winter use. Hope to get the same on current set.

Crossbow

My '97 2.8L 12V came with Goodyear Eagle all-seasons. After 40k miles, they still looked good, showed no uneven wear, and had plenty of tread left.

I replaced them at 40k (with an identical set of Goodyear Eagles) and was amazed how much quieter and smoother the ride suddenly became.

I resolved to only go 30k on my new set.

I can't speak for other tire types, but the Goodyears can safely be driven 40-50k miles (perhaps more). If you want a better ride, though, replace them sooner.

Crossbow