Tire experiences ?

A6 All/ S6 All
#1

Ive gone through 4 sets of tires in the last i would say for years. the last set (Front) had uneven wear, on the inner wall of the tire uneven to the point it looked as though it was intentionally carved with wire showing from the inside of the tire. those lasted roughly 15-17k miles Bridgestone Potenza S-03. Continentals i had lasted around 12k miles Michelin AS/3’s lasted roughly 13k miles.

Setup: OEM 19’s, OEM struts
Had an alignment roughly 10k miles ago, by Audi and they were still unevenly worn. The only tire set out of the 4 to do so.

I’m in the process of shopping for new tires and wondering what the experiences are within the community and tires

#2

how are your control arms? If those are bad they can cause uneven wear.

#3

Is the car lowered? If so, you won’t be able to bring the camber back to spec without camber connection arms/bushes (don’t recommend bushes). So the inside front will wear.

I can’t recommend Pilot Super Sports enough. My rear tyres are at 40-50% after about 40,000km, and really fantastic grip/performance. Unbelievable.

#4

really? that’s hard to believe. I crushed a set in about 30,000 kms

#5

Im not a big tire guy. My advice is one make sure your suspension is set otherwise your chewing up good tires for no reason with bad ware patterns.

The second big tip is look into getting weather specific tires. Summer tires are harder and they will last longer in the heat and hard driving conditions. Winter tires or some all season tires will ware faster due to them being a softer compound. Winter tires are meant to be softer. This helps them grip better in super cold weather. All tires need to warm up to help grip… winter tires just take very little work to do this. Summer tires are super hard and they tend to last longer then all seasons due to them being so hard. The only down side is if you try to drive in the winter on summer tires you might as well be driving on slicks.

#6

I have noticed my audis eat tires. Only one that hasnt really is my old c4. That said, the multi link arms/bushes need to be in tip top shape and alignment. All obvious stuff but I have noticed it is most important with my audis. I had great luck with my b-stone S04’s and conti dw. Tore through conti sport contacts and conti dws (all seasons). Both were due to poor toe adjustment. I have shop set as close to 0 toe and zero cross camber and it seems to help. I also find it hard to get a good alignment. I am willing to pay for more than just a $80 cheap alignment but seem to always catch shit about how the shop cant or wont set it up to my wants. Its frustrating.

#7

Im not sure you guys can get them over in US but i have Uniroyal Rainsport 3’s on mine, they seem to be very prone to attracting nails! I have had 2 get caught with nails badly while driving but also a bulge in the side wall of another.they are great for the wet Irish climate. I havent had them long enough to comment on them long term , they do loose grip when temp drops below 7c obviously since they are a summer tyre and they can them be a bit slidey in damp conditions

#8

I wouldn’t believe it either, except I look at them every day! It’s true! Rear only, I smashed the fronts in under 15k km. But this has lots to do with steep camber.

Every other tyre I’ve had hasn’t lasted more than 30K km.

#9

I’m glad that this thread was started… I have not had good luck with tires on my S6 either. When I bought this car 12 months ago it came with Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3’s which had VERY bad road noise. The tread looked fine but they vibrated badly.

About 10k miles ago I bought a set of Pilot Super Sports for $1,400 with alignment. They were rotated/balanced once at about 6k miles and I immediately noticed some faint road noise that has only gotten worse with 10k miles on them.

Michelin tires have always worked well and lasted much longer on my previous AWD Audi’s so I think it is likely that the alignment done by the local VW dealer was not exactly correct. I probably need to go back to them and explain that these tires have not lasted long enough and it can only be the alignment to blame.

Comments? Suggestions?

#10

I’m a huge fan of DWS tires. Yes they are all seasons but I only use them in the summer. They were on the car when I bought it but so far I’m at about 10k miles and still have 6/32 left. Got them with around 7/8 depending on which tire you are looking at

#11

I had the Dws as well, and even the the sidewall is a little softer than the conti summers they performed pretty well.

Also, At the time I don’t think they made a 265/35/19 so I went with 275/35/19. Car had better grip but again the sidewall was a little squishy especially with the little bit of extra width.

#12

I have the DW in 275/35/19 for summer. Blizzak 265/35/19 winter. I wanted the meatier look of the 275/35. Definitely like the tire so far with 1 season on them. Didn’t measure them when I put them away, though.

#13

I’m not lowered, had my control arms replaced not too long ago. I also had bad control arms and my tires wore pretty evenly. I had my engine replaced and Audi performed an alignment and since the the tires have worn extremely badly.

#14

At how many miles did the engine get replaced? Perhaps go to a performance shop and have the alignment checked.

#15

About 18k miles ago if that rough estimate.

Haven’t hit curbs nothing to throw off the alignment that bad. It’s hard enough getting the local dealership to call me back in regards to the alignment. Unless they performed a bad alignment with incorrect camber or charged me and never did it

#16

Picked up my S6 four years ago with a new set of Conti Sport Contact’s at 45K on stock 19" rims. I picked up a set of 18" wheels and Blizzaks from tire rack for the winter. I’ve have had very good luck with both tires. That first set of Sport Contacts lasted about 35K, hard to say as I run the blizzaks from Jan - march. The sports handle very well, and are quiet. However they definitely do not qualify as all season! I’ve been caught in an early snow and they do not work in snow, period, glad I have an Audi.
The Blizzaks turn the S6 into a snow carving beast, turn off the traction control and have fun. Just picked up my second set of Conti’s, forgot how sticky they were when new. Definitely the reason I needed to fix control arms, didn’t want to screw these up at $1200 a set.

#17

Did you have any issues clearing the front 285 rotors? I had an old set of 18" Ronals that I think would look nice and ensure I’m protected for crappy roads. They’re VW bolt pattern so was thinking 10mm adapters.

#18

My S6 came with Conti 3’s when I got it at 50k miles, I hated them the side walls are soo soft they get cut up and really didn’t like them once they wore out I’ve had 3 sets of Michelin Pilot Super Sports they last about 15k each or about a years worth of motoring they generally wear pretty evenly ( F to R and across the tyre itself) however this last set the fronts wore out quite a bit sooner than the rears to the point where there’s still about 4mm left on the rears so I’ve just changed the fronts to the new Conti 6’s as they have been very well reviewed.

It’s noticeable that the front control arms were all shagged and just before I changed the front tyres I’ve had the whole of the front arms changed and had a KW V3 coilover kit installed. So I suspect the front arms were directly linked to the premature wearing of the front tyres plus the chronic understeer that I was experiencing which prompted the change in suspension, however I suspect the change in arms has had a very significant effect on the current handling.

Back to tyres, the Jurys out on the New Conti 6’s, I know that they really don’t like the cold, so probably not the best time of year to put these tyres on but lets see how they perform in the months to come.

#19

In the last five years, I’ve ran the following on my A4. Summers: Pirelli P Zero Rosso 235/35/R19, and Pirelli P Zero 235/35/R19. Winters: Pirelli Wintersport 225/40/R18, and Toyo Observe Garit KX 225/45/R18.

The car was lowered when I got it, and believe it or not, since then I have replaced the suspesion with the stock suspension. I never had any unusual tire wear issues from being lowered.

If your tires are wearing like crap, then it’s likely either your control arms or your tie rods. A wheel alignment won’t do much good if you have an eighth of an inch of wobble in your tie rod(s). You can get kits to address the whole sha-bango, that come with both control arms and tie rods. No hunting for the problem - just replace arms and rods and do an alignment.

If you’re doing 100km/hr (60mph) on snow or ice, and the car seems to wander momentarily ever so slightly, then this is likely your problem. I’ve experienced this before, and at first I described it as “subtle darting”. Not even perceptible on dry pavement.

#20

Justin makes a good point that weather specific tires are HUGE for both performance and wear. Winter tires scrub off pretty fast in summer heat because they pretty much literally melt. Summer tires are optimized to be soft in summer temperatures, so they freeze in the winter and can crack in the cold - crack through the tread right down beyond the tread wear indicators (been there, done that).

I can verify the fill-your-pants excitement of running summer tires in the winter (summers, not all seasons). There was no lineup at the wheel re-finishing place a few years ago in January, so I put on my summer tires on for a week while my winters got painted. Driving on summer tires was like I was on ice at all times.

I have 45 profile winter tires right now. Toyo Observe Garit KX 225/45/R18. They’re bigger than stock, but I wanted an aggressive looking tread, and a 45 sidewall. I can’t go any smaller than R18 because of my big brake kit, and I’ve had too many rims rebuilt to consider running 40 profile again. The streets are just too rough in the city I live in. I have no rubbing issues if anyone else considers this size tire. The fat rubber makes the car look a little lower, and adds a tiny bit of ground clearance.