Tires: tires, wear warranty, fwd cars

Question
If you buy a car brand new how many miles should you be able to go on the tires before having to replace all 4?
I think I got cheated!!!

Answer
Cindy,

That's a tough question to answer because there are so many variables.

1)  The vehicle manufacturer is the one who sets the specs for the tires, not the tire manufacturer.  The vehicle manufacturer will call for rolling resistance values of XX, traction values of YY, handling values of XX, etc - and what is left is how well the tire is going to wear.  For this reason tire manufacturer to do supply a wear warranty for Original Equipment (OE )tires.

The vehicle manufacturer typically does not supply a warranty for tires, so they don't care what the wear characteristics are.

2)  The type of tire.  Tires designed to grip well aren't going to wear well - it's just the nature of the beast.  Many sports cars are prized for their handling properties and ones of the ways they get that is with tires that grip - and unfortunately that also means tires that don't wear well.  Many sports sedan and even seemly normal sedans also fall into this category.

3)  Most tire wear occurs in the cornering mode.  In order to generate the forces needed to turn a vehicle, the tire have to develop a slip angle - the difference between direction the tire is pointed and the direction it's actually going.  This causes wear.

Driving a lot in a straight line - like between two cities - doesn't generate much wear compared to turning a lot of corners - like driving within a city.

4)  Front wheel drive (FWD) cars are known to wear tires about 2½ times faster than rear tires.  That means tire rotation is required to prevent the front tires from early wearout.  

RWD's and some AWD's wear tires at about the same rate, albeit the wear pattern is different front to rear.  Steer tires tend to wear on the shoulders and drive tires tend to wear in the center.  Another reason why tire rotation is important.

5)  Misalignment can cause the tires to wear unevenly and rapidly.  Unfortunately, it is quite possible to knock a suspension out of alignment by running over pot holes.

...........

I could go on, but I think you get the point.  

Rather than try to figure out IF you've been cheated, why not see if there is anything that can be done.  For that, the details become important.  How many miles did you actually get?  What sort of car are we discussing?  What have you done so far?