Brake and Tyre Wear After 1 Year

[jaypers777]

Car is 1 year old today and been in for its oil change. Everything perfect as you would expect as I’ve only covered 3300 miles. What surprised be a little is that all tyres were already down to 5.5mm tread (Bridgestones) and front and rear brake pad wear was 10%. Wasn’t expecting this is fronts are ceramic.

 

[Daggerit]

Car is 1 year old today and been in for its oil change. Everything perfect as you would expect as I’ve only covered 3300 miles. What surprised be a little is that all tyres were already down to 5.5mm tread (Bridgestones) and front and rear brake pad wear was 10%. Wasn’t expecting this is fronts are ceramic.

I don’t think the Bridgestones have a lot of tread from new to be honest.

As for the brakes, 10% is fractions of a millimetre for the disks and maybe 1 mm at most on the pads. I highly doubt they actually measure them, let alone to that accuracy. I imagine they just say that they can’t see visible wear but they’ve been used so say 10% as an arbitrary value.


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[8YARWY]

I don’t think the Bridgestones have a lot of tread from new to be honest.

As for the brakes, 10% is fractions of a millimetre for the disks and maybe 1 mm at most on the pads. I highly doubt they actually measure them, let alone to that accuracy. I imagine they just say that they can’t see visible wear but they’ve been used so say 10% as an arbitrary value.


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Wrong, they use a tool that can measure from the outside

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Laser Tools 6678 Brake Pad Thickness Gauge

Laser Tools 6678 A pencil type brake pad wear gauge that allows for the pad thickness to be accurately measured without the need to remove the wheel from...

www.lasertools.co.uk

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[Terminator x]

Car is 1 year old today and been in for its oil change. Everything perfect as you would expect as I’ve only covered 3300 miles. What surprised be a little is that all tyres were already down to 5.5mm tread (Bridgestones) and front and rear brake pad wear was 10%. Wasn’t expecting this is fronts are ceramic.

I thought ceramics wear out the disk rather than the pad eg pads should last for over 100k miles etc.

My car has 33k miles on it with ceramics (not a RS3) and the service indicator still says 160k until rear pads need changing!

TX.

 

[Daggerit]

Wrong, they use a tool that can measure from the outside

Similar to this

Laser Tools 6678 Brake Pad Thickness Gauge

Laser Tools 6678 A pencil type brake pad wear gauge that allows for the pad thickness to be accurately measured without the need to remove the wheel from...

www.lasertools.co.uk

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Totally agree these things are available, but I'm still not convinced they will have actually bothered measuring them on a car with that few miles on it was more my point. And they've just stuck a minimum value number in there to look like they've done something. In reality I wouldn't blame them for not actually measuring unless it looked like there was something odd.

 

[jaypers777]

Totally agree these things are available, but I'm still not convinced they will have actually bothered measuring them on a car with that few miles on it was more my point. And they've just stuck a minimum value number in there to look like they've done something. In reality I wouldn't blame them for not actually measuring unless it looked like there was something odd.

For what it’s worth, here’s a still from the Audi Cam video. No tool used……he says “as you can see, pads about 10% worn”, so not very scientific.

 

[Daggerit]

View attachment 268608
For what it’s worth, here’s a still from the Audi Cam video. No tool used……he says “as you can see, pads about 10% worn”, so not very scientific.

Pretty much what I figured they'd do. Really they shouldn't need to measure at your mileage unless there's some sort of witness mark to indicate there's something odd going on. But for the other part of this, I have no idea if it's the pads or disk that wear out faster (although I'm hoping it's the pads because they're a lot cheaper than disks!) or what kind of mileage you should be getting with normal road driving. Although I'd heard somewhere in the 100k miles region.

 

[8YARWY]

Just because it shows no tool used doesn’t mean they didn’t measure all four corners first.

I liked Macclesfield Audi’s approach on this

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[Charlie Farley]

Car is 1 year old today and been in for its oil change. Everything perfect as you would expect as I’ve only covered 3300 miles. What surprised be a little is that all tyres were already down to 5.5mm tread (Bridgestones) and front and rear brake pad wear was 10%. Wasn’t expecting this is fronts are ceramic.

Tyre tread depth on new tyres is around the 8mm mark accross most brands.
If you have used 2.5mm in 3300 miles , then at that rate of wear you will be down to the 1.6mm legal limit in just very short milage.

Tyre wear is not a given figure, so many factors at play which will reduce it by a lot or not, is it possible that maybe your driving style that is not helping with the low milage / wear situation, to be down to 5.5 in only 3300 indicates something out of the norm.

 

[Charlie Farley]

I've found Bridgstone performance tires to be a somewhat hard compound tire and they wear very slowly under normal conditions.
On my legacy spec b they lasted for 25k miles.

 

[Daggerit]

Tyre tread depth on new tyres is around the 8mm mark accross most brands.
If you have used 2.5mm in 3300 miles , then at that rate of wear you will be down to the 1.6mm legal limit in just very short milage.

Tyre wear is not a given figure, so many factors at play which will reduce it by a lot or not, is it possible that maybe your driving style that is not helping with the low milage / wear situation, to be down to 5.5 in only 3300 indicates something out of the norm.

Mine were similar at a similar mileage and I certainly didn’t abuse them. The occasional back road blast but most of the time it was commuting and general just running around. Changed them at 4k miles and now my Michelins are at the same sort of mileage with similar driving, they have 7mm of tread so makes me think the Bridgestones start with a bit less or wear a bit quicker.


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[Charlie Farley]

It's possible the compound used in newer Bridgestone that are audi spec fitment is now softer, may be more of an issue with the rs3 fitment if a lot of owners report similar wear issues.
Always a chance it's just the car but unlikely.
may be worth asking the question across a larger group of owners with a view to gauge wear rates.

 

[Charlie Farley]

If I had a new or nearly new car and was driving it normally (not racing the backroads) and tyres were not lasting more than 6-8k miles id be asking questions at Audi or the tire manufacturer to be honest.
Tires last longer than that in normal usage, I'm not captain slow and do like to explore the limits of adhesion of my tires, but they still return very good milage.

 

[8YARWY]

If I had a new or nearly new car and was driving it normally (not racing the backroads) and tyres were not lasting more than 6-8k miles id be asking questions at Audi or the tire manufacturer to be honest.
Tires last longer than that in normal usage, I'm not captain slow and do like to explore the limits of adhesion of my tires, but they still return very good milage.

Lol as with most threads in this 8Y section, you’ll get no interaction when replying.
I do wonder at times why half these owners start something then don’t respond.


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[Charlie Farley]

But at least they have received a reply to their question, whether its what they wanted to hear is something else..lol

 

[Daggerit]

If I had a new or nearly new car and was driving it normally (not racing the backroads) and tyres were not lasting more than 6-8k miles id be asking questions at Audi or the tire manufacturer to be honest.
Tires last longer than that in normal usage, I'm not captain slow and do like to explore the limits of adhesion of my tires, but they still return very good milage.

I don’t think they’re actually going down that quick though, that was what I was trying to get across. I think they just have less trad depth to begin with. Visually compared to the Michelins when I put them on they looked shallower.


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[Charlie Farley]

I don’t think they’re actually going down that quick though, that was what I was trying to get across. I think they just have less trad depth to begin with. Visually compared to the Michelins when I put them on they looked shallower.


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I doubt it chap, most brands tend to all stay within specific spec depth-wise, some tires look deeper I know what you are saying but in real terms, I doubt they are any less.

 

[flybynite]

I doubt it chap, most brands tend to all stay within specific spec depth-wise, some tires look deeper I know what you are saying but in real terms, I doubt they are any less.

If you read/watch the tyre reviews you will see that there is a lot of difference in the tread depth for new tyres, especially the performance end of the market which tend to come with reduced tread depth for performance reasons. Same reason they 'shave' tyres or scrub them in to get best performance.

 

[Charlie Farley]

I'll have a look, not seen any difference in the performance tires i have used.

 

[Charlie Farley]

In which case if they are that much lower tread depth when new, then one has to expect them to need replacement a lot sooner at considerable expense to the owner.
The easiest way is to get the original off the self spec for the tyres fitted to an RS3Y.
A web search will bring up all the data for a given spec tire fitted new on an RS3Y

 

[Charlie Farley]

Car is 1 year old today and been in for its oil change. Everything perfect as you would expect as I’ve only covered 3300 miles. What surprised be a little is that all tyres were already down to 5.5mm tread (Bridgestones) and front and rear brake pad wear was 10%. Wasn’t expecting this is fronts are ceramic.

Bridgestone Potenza Sport
265/30 R19 Y (93)​

have an initial tread depth of 6.6mm , so thats ok then if your are on 5.5 , just over 1mm in 3300 miles.
they should be good for approx 16500 miles under normal cond, less your 3300 , you have approx 13200 miles left based on changing at the min legal 1.6mm depth.

 

[Mike.46]

Just because it shows no tool used doesn’t mean they didn’t measure all four corners first.

I liked Macclesfield Audi’s approach on this

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I dont mind them writing on my tyres but not sure it's a good thing to put what is essentially paint? on the brake disc

 

[8YARWY]

I dont mind them writing on my tyres but not sure it's a good thing to put what is essentially paint? on the brake disc

get a grip man.


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[jaypers777]

Thanks for all the responses. I don’t drive the car abnormally but judging by the replies I get the impression that this is quite common/normal on the 8Y RS3/Bridgestone combination. Interesting about them only being 6.6mm from new as I thought all new tyres were 8mm. I won’t be running them down much below 4mm before changing them. Then there’s a decision to be made whether I stick with Bridgestones.

 

[doncarlyon]

No prior experience of the Bridgestone Sport, but on my Megane 300 Trophy I went through a set of Bridgestones on the front in 5k miles. This is normal commuting mileage. They were replaced with a pair of Michelin Supersports which were still going strong at 18k miles when the car went back.

Preferred the drive on the Bridgestones though

 

[garethdj]

I've found Bridgstone performance tires to be a somewhat hard compound tire and they wear very slowly under normal conditions.
On my legacy spec b they lasted for 25k miles.

They melt under any other conditions.


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[Daggerit]

They melt under any other conditions.


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I'd seen that on here and on some online reviews. A track day seems to melt them and pull them apart.

 

[8YARWY]

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[Daggerit]

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[Charlie Farley]

Melting tires are a very common occurrence in my leisure time, exploring the limits of adhesion and surface area ..lol