[zbgirl]

Can you believe I got a puncture on my rear tire, close to another puncture! The tire place I went to today mentioned that if it does fail, I will likely need to replace all four tires due to it being AWD. I have almost 19K on my car.

The second repair had to almost overlap the first repair. Strange luck, huh.

Is this a strange but true situation - I haven't had AWD before so...someone educate me!

 

[anchorman]

This has been discussed before. Put it this way, I have run a mix of tire depths on a car with the same AWD system and no harm came to it. I can see some logic in having a pair of tires across an "axle" IF the tires are more than say, half worn but as there is no physical connection between the front and rear then insisting on all 4 changed is a nonsense.

 

[greaseman85]

Just buy one matching tire, I believe they should be able to wear the tire down to match the depth of the other tires.

 

[Sarah]

This is why I like this board so much. I learn something daily.

 

[Vipre77]

Just buy one matching tire, I believe they should be able to wear the tire down to match the depth of the other tires.

It's a process called tire shaving. Not a lot of shops around are willing to do it to a brand new street tire on a passenger vehicle because it voids the manufacturer warranty and opens the door for customer complaints or even lawsuits in the event of a flat or an accident. Used to be a more common practice. Still done to some extent for off-road tires, most commonly for race tires, where warranty is usually not expected anyway.

Probably better off looking for a used tire that'll get you by for a while until you're ready to replace the whole lot. There's some shops around that will deal in used tires. They are usually tires pulled off customer cars because they had a similar situation and needed to replace 2 or 4 tires or when people put on winter tires or other after-market tires and decide they don't want the OEM rubber anymore.

 

[zbgirl]

Thanks Greaseman and Vipre77 for those thoughts. Here's to hoping the tire will remain ok til its time to replace them. I'll have to check the manual to see what the specs are for this model (GS).

I did see the posts referred to in the Tire section. Good to know.