Regulars may remember my tire choice, Toyo Proxes 4. I bought these because I pop a tire a year, on average and needed a cheap tire.

Well...I was innocently driving home from work and was turning though an intersection to enter a gas station. I missed seeing a fscking pothole and hit it, HARD, at about 20 mph.

Pulled into the gas station and while fueling up, inspected the front wheels. Damn if there wasn't a fscking bubble in the passenger side, front tire's sidewall. Not only that, the clearcoat of the wheel was scraped off nearby. Fsck! I popped a tire a year ago, on my previous car, my 2004 TL. I just have no fscking luck in this regard.

So on this AWD car, do I replace just the front two, or all four? There is no consistent advice provided anywhere about this, some say two and some say four. For now, I'm aiming to replace just two tires. In the meantime, I'm going to have to go back to my fugly stockers, which I took off with only 995 miles on them. Nooooooo!!!!!!!

 

Sorry to hear this. It sucks when that happens. At least you have something to go back to while you get your wheel repaired and two tires replaced


I am sure you saw this?

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=18

Get two more and have them shaved to the within 2/32 of what you have on the other two.

 

The others were already 6/32 at my last inspection in July with 12k miles on them at the time. It's doubtful they would make it through another winter. That's a lotta shaving, but I'd rather buy two than four. I can afford four but just don't want to waste halfway (literally) decent tires.

Decisions, decisons.....

Edit: I did what I should have done before posting (BAD MOD! BAD MOD! ): I looked in the owner's manual. It says, on page 386:

They say nothing about shaving, likely for liability reasons as sometimes shaving can damage the tire.

 

That is a tough decision. At 4/32, you are pretty worn out (I know the legal limit is 2/32, but the tire is really on its last legs by then, at least as far as wet grip goes). You could have the new tires shaved 2/32 from the original 10/32 to 8/32 and you will be pretty close there. Of course, I have no idea how much shaving costs.

Without knowing the costs involved, for the most cost effective solution, I guess I would measure all three tires, retain the two with the most tread, and replace 2, either shaved or unshaved.