Not sure about your particular tyres, but the Falkens on my Forester came with 7mm new tread and whilst have been decent enough tyres grip wise they haven't worn well and i wouldn't buy again.

Just looked up when fitted, the car has covered 20k miles since and they're down to 3mm, not bad you might think, except half of that mileage has been covered on my winter tyres, so at best around 12k miles, maybe near 15k when they get sc***ped...to be fair the car is fast with permanent 4WD and gets driven briskly.

Very few new car tyres come with a genuine 8mm or more new tread, Goodyear Efficient Grip come with 8mm, Uniroyal Rainsport 8.4mm similar found on Vredestein Quatrac and one of these will be my next choice unless something decent comes up at an unmissable price (to be fair the Falkens were stupidly cheap when i bought them, double the cost now)...beware, some notable premium makes now come with only 6.5mm new tread.

Its difficult to find new tread depth information, odd that when they're so happy to give all other info, wonder why? Camskill give new depths on most tyres, TyreReviews on tyres they physically test, if you find somewhere else giving this info please let us know.

edit, just looked on tyrereviews, your tyres came with 7.5mm new tread

I looked at Camskill but can't see where they list the groove depth, and the V.Ultrac in TyteTeview is 6.9mm. Are these numbers reliable?

Edited by JonestHon on 28/07/2024 at 15:30

If they are low Profile then you will get poor mileage

Beg to disagree there.

Our Fabia TSi 110 PS had 45 profile tyres (215 45 16) and after 22,000 miles still had about 4.5mm left on the fronts and 5 mm on the rear, they were Bridgestones. They were never moved front to rear etc

Had a Ceed SW 1.6 CRDi 115 PS with 45 profile tyres (225 45 17) which still had about 4mm left after about 30,000 miles, Michelins. They were rotated front to rear once a year when we refitted them after the winter. Note that the 30,000 miles does not include the miles covered on the winter tyres.

I don't think you can draw any conclusions at all without knowing how much tread you started with. You could speak to a local tyre supplier,or sneak into a VW showrooms and measure the tread depth on a showroom model.

I don't think 15000 miles to worn out is excessive....

Well I do. I expect a decent set of tyres to last 30k on a sensibly driven not-very-powerful car. There were Michelin Crossclimates on our new Peugeot 2008 130hp I didn't measure the tread but apparently they would have been 7mm.

..... I never swap them back to front.

I think it good practice to swap to ensure equal wear. I swapped ours at 15,500. Now, at 27,000 there is around 3mm tread all round. That's nearly 7k miles per mm. They should easily top 30k.

I am slightly surprised..

The Korando1.5 Tgdi is heavy and 235/55/18 tyres and on checking at my friendly garage today, (tyre pressures.) front 3.5 mm and rears 5.5 mm at 19100 miles..

No complaints there. Hankook factory fit.

In the wet it can have a tendency to lose grip if i am enthusiastic setting off.

In the dry I can feel the torque steer effect under the same setting off too enthusiastic, but in todays traffic needed at times.

Edited by Orb>> on 26/07/2024 at 19:44