Just back from the garage after our first service; done just under 10,000 miles since new - very few of those miles would fit the 'enthusiastic' category but the front tyres are already down to 2mm on one and 3mm on the other, rears are both 6mm. This seems rather high wear to me (and the technician), tyres are Conti premium contact 2.

What are other 1.2 drivers finding?

Changed my front Goodyears at about 13-14000 there was still a few mm left but winter had struck so wanted some tread depth.

Just back from the garage after our first service; done just under 10,000 miles since new - very few of those miles would fit the 'enthusiastic' category but the front tyres are already down to 2mm on one and 3mm on the other, rears are both 6mm. This seems rather high wear to me (and the technician), tyres are Conti premium contact 2.

What are other 1.2 drivers finding?

Cannot comment on the Yeti but Premium Contact 2's on a Fabia VRS have 3mm left after 14000miles

6000 miles in and no visible wear on my goodyear excellance

10000 on dunlop boots very little wear.

Edited 4 January, 201115 yr by wakev

Just back from the garage after our first service; done just under 10,000 miles since new - very few of those miles would fit the 'enthusiastic' category but the front tyres are already down to 2mm on one and 3mm on the other, rears are both 6mm. This seems rather high wear to me (and the technician), tyres are Conti premium contact 2.

What are other 1.2 drivers finding?

Not a 1.2 TSI, but 2.0 TDI 170 HP:

The car currently has 26,000 miles on the clock. About half the miles on winter and half on summer tyres. Both set of tyres have about 5 mm left.

As a rule, I watch the thread depth and change front to back when there is an appreciable difference - the front naturally wear faster. "Conventional" wisdom insists that the best tyres be on the back. I disagree with that idea. If you do not switch during half their lifetime, you will end up with worn fronts and OK backs - and need to replace two tyres. Do you then put those on front or what???

I want all four to be as identical as possible, and replace all four at the same time. I expect to get one more sumer out of the sumer tyres and maybe another winter from the ones on the car now. I relpace summer tyres with about 3 mm left and winters with 4 mm. If come April, the winters are close to the 4 mm, I might just leave them on till they get down to 3 mm - that will be OK for summer weather. It will also be time to buy new winter tyres at a time when they are not so much in demand, and hence cheaper.

Thanks for the replies.

Under 10k does seem a bit soon to be this far gone by all accounts then.

The vast majority of my driving is on windy country roads with something in the region of 15% of the total being on motorway/dual carriageway.

My last car had a tracking issue throughout is life which couldn't be corrected and meant it slowly chewed off the inner edges, but I still got more than 10,000 miles from a pair.

Not a 1.2 TSI, but 2.0 TDI 170 HP:

The car currently has 26,000 miles on the clock. About half the miles on winter and half on summer tyres. Both set of tyres have about 5 mm left.

As a rule, I watch the thread depth and change front to back when there is an appreciable difference - the front naturally wear faster. "Conventional" wisdom insists that the best tyres be on the back. I disagree with that idea. If you do not switch during half their lifetime, you will end up with worn fronts and OK backs - and need to replace two tyres. Do you then put those on front or what???

I want all four to be as identical as possible, and replace all four at the same time. I expect to get one more sumer out of the sumer tyres and maybe another winter from the ones on the car now. I relpace summer tyres with about 3 mm left and winters with 4 mm. If come April, the winters are close to the 4 mm, I might just leave them on till they get down to 3 mm - that will be OK for summer weather. It will also be time to buy new winter tyres at a time when they are not so much in demand, and hence cheaper.

I disagree too!

However, the thinking is that if you have to replace just the fronts, you should put the 2 new tyres on the back because for the majority of front wheel drive cars, the rears can last for 50-60,000 miles or more. This means that many low mileage motorists never have to replace the rear tyres. As a result, the rears can last for 6,7, or 8 years without being replaced, by which time a tyre will be degrading and could have dangerous sidewall cracks. The "official" design life of a tyre is 5 years.

A 4 wheel drive car should periodically have its tyres changed front to back (not side to side) to even out the wear, in order to keep the rolling radius the same as the tyres wear. The downside of this is that you end up with a big bill for 4 tyres all at once!

Edited 6 January, 201115 yr by speedsport