Julian

Hopefully, this is a straightforward question. 5,000 miles after buying my A4, I ran over a large screw which caused a fairly large hole in one tire (the Dunlop SP8000). A shop patched the tire, although they were not optimistic it would hold. The tire has been fine through 16,000 miles. Now it is leaking again, and if the leak is in the same spot, I may have to replace the tire.

My tires generally have a lot of life in them, as I do not drive the car hard. I'd love to replace only a pair of tires, but I've heard that if you need to replace one tire, you need to replace all 4 with the Quattro. Otherwise, there is too much strain on the transmission.

Any comments would be appreciated. I apologize if this has been beaten into the ground before.

Regards,

Julian

CactuSavant

I don't think you would do quattro any harm with the size differences you're talking about--16,000 mile vs. new tires.

I'd say if you have more than 1/2 tread left on your old tires, you could consider getting a pair of new ones, and putting the new ones on the front where they'll wear a bit faster.

But chances are you'll just be faced with the same situation in a while...some tires that need to be replaced, and some that are okay...

So, you could replace all 4, maybe with something cheap but decent (Kumho? Sumitomo?) or something moderately-priced (Yoko?).

Could then see if anyone wants to buy 3 used SP8000s...you never know, someone else might be in the same situation!

Good luck.