blackspeed3

Well i have 11k miles on my speed3 and the tread is gone. To add insult to injury was going down a back road takin a friend home and hit a bump, (didnt think that much about it at the time) then the next day ic a knot in the tire. I call around to see how much to replace it and its 250 a tire!!!!!! So now im going with a pirelli tire for 175 a piece... Guy told me low profile tires be lucky to get 20k miles max out of em. So looks like a major expense for our tires in the future.

dentinger

11k on one set of tires??? thats insane!! you gotta stop doing clutch drops and burnouts!!
i have a 3 sedan, and i have around 10,000kms on my tires. and they still have lots of life left.
you need to keep on top of tire rotations, and tire pressures.

chiefmg

The issue is that Mazda used high performance summer tires on both the Speed6 and Speed3. I'm not sure the style used on the 3, but on my 6 the wear rating number was 140. This means they handle great but wear fast. I just replaced mine at 15,000 miles, there was a little left but I needed to replace them so my gf wouldn't be stuck while I was gone.

It isn't so much that low profile tires wear faster, you need to look at the wear rating number. The lower the number, the stickier the tire and the faster they will wear. I now have a set of Toyo Proxes T1-R in the stock size with a wear rating of 240. Cost was $143 per tire (plus shipping). Haven't pushed them too hard yet, seems like they don't quite have the ultimate grip of the stock Bridestones (although since I also installed adjustable front ball joints at the same time and got a good alignment it is hard to say) but they are good tires.

blackspeed3

143 not bad at all... Guy told me we have to go with a w or y speed rating thats where the cash shoots in. Is this true? Even though im not sure i would wana go with anything less in this car just a thought....

chiefmg

Due to the speed capability of the car, you will find most places won't sell you a tire that is rated for a lower speed than your stock ones (liability issues). I found this out when I got tires for my MilleniaS at Sears, once they found out what car the tires were for they would not sell me a lower rated tire.

My advice would be to search around on the 'net for tires, you can find some good deals. Edgeracing.com and tiredeals4less.com are two places to try. The only problem can be getting them mounted, some places (usually the large chains) will charge you extra if you don't buy from them. And if you get the mounting done at the corner shop chances are your rims will get marred. It can be done, you just have to do some research.