Service rip off

[markjay]

On front wheel drive cars I have always put the new tyre on the rear , the whole 'rotating' tyres is simply not possible anymore on may modern cars because of directional tyres being fitted and many cars (whether they need it or not) having different sizes front and rear.

I do know that outside of people like us on car forums many drivers just see 4 black hoops on there car that are a pain in the a$$ because they have to buy new ones now and again.

Asymmetric and unidirectional tyres... on a staggered wheels car... no way you can rotate them....

Luckily assymetric tyres are not that common, and I don't have staggered wheels either, so I rotate my (unidirectional) tyres back-to-front.

I used to do this at every service, but with Covid mileage last year (and this year hasn't been much better so far), I think I'll start doing it every other service.

 

[markjay]

As for fitting the best tyres at the rear... well, I think this is bad advise. I am not arguing with the science, but I think that we should encourage people to have the same tyres all around, rather than a couple of new ones and a couple of worn ones.

We recently had a member here who bought four new tyres - two Pirellis and two Michelin. So which is the better tyre, to go in the rear.....?

I do appreciate that sometimes you replace only two tyres, so end-up with two new ones and two worn ones, but the way the advise is worded it seems to suggest that having better tyres at the rear than at the front is fine, well it isn't, unless you have no (practical) choice.

And, at any rate, the advise is irrelevant if you have staggered wheels setup.

 

[Rory]

So all three of our cars have bigger rear tyres than on the front. Saves an argument at least

Didn't stop Costco trying to put the wider rears on the front of my car when I bought a pair of fronts!
Had to get the store general manger to overrule the tyre manager.

In the handbook for my car it says if you're replacing a pair of tyres, Mercedes ESP is so good that the new tyres would be most use on the front. MB stuck with that line for years, but gave up in the face of tyre industry pressure.

 

[Connoisseur]

Didn't stop Costco trying to put the wider rears on the front of my car when I bought a pair of fronts!
Had to get the store general manger to overrule the tyre manager.

In the handbook for my car it says if you're replacing a pair of tyres, Mercedes ESP is so good that the new tyres would be most use on the front. MB stuck with that line for years, but gave up in the face of tyre industry pressure.

he heh, yes Costco do have quite a reputation for that particular issue...

 

[wongl]

Didn't stop Costco trying to put the wider rears on the front of my car when I bought a pair of fronts!
Had to get the store general manger to overrule the tyre manager.

In the handbook for my car it says if you're replacing a pair of tyres, Mercedes ESP is so good that the new tyres would be most use on the front. MB stuck with that line for years, but gave up in the face of tyre industry pressure.

Wish MB would give up in the face of industy regarding UK delete.

 

[markjay]

Wish MB would give up in the face of industy regarding UK delete.

There's a reason for the UK instrument cluster layout, and it's not related to legislation.

If you were driving in the Continent, and set the LCD display in the instrument to show the speed in Km/h, you'll be meeting the legal requirement.

However, when doing this, you will not be able to use any of the cluster's LCD display other functions (Navigation, Radio, Tel, etc), because they will replace the speed display. Hence why a permanent Km/h speed display was added, replacing the outside temp display.

UK delete mod does not make your car illegal... as long as you keep the Km/h display on the cluster when driving in the Continent, and avoid using any of the other features.

This was introduced when MB - for reasons known only to themselves, and unlike any other car manufacturers - decided to stop the dual-dial display on the speedometer (showing both the mph and Km/h dials).

I have only driven MB with the LCD instrument cluster in Europe, not in the UK, so can't say if there's still a UK variant, though you'd have thought that with the flexibility that a full-LCD clusters offers, there will be no need to a UK-specific variant.

 

[Deleted member 65149]

Returning to the tyre replacement part of this discussion, I can’t remember when I last only replaced 2 tyres. Maybe it’s my driving style and maybe it’s the particular cars I’ve owned, but for over 30 years at least I’ve always had all four replaced at the same time without having needed to or been able to swap them around. With those bits of rubber being all that’s connecting my car to the road, I don’t want to be taking any chances. 3mm is the minimum point at which I change tyres so undoubtedly there have been times when a couple of the tyres will have been nearer to 4mm. It’s a big chunk of money to fork out at once, but I’m not prepared to put a price on my life, my family’s life, or anyone else’s life.

 

[markjay]

Returning to the tyre replacement part of this discussion, I can’t remember when I last only replaced 2 tyres...

As above.

The exception are two occasions where I had to buy a single new tyre (of the same make an model as the other three) due to irreparable punctures.

 

[Rory]

I bought my car with 6K miles on it - I drive vast majority steady motorway but the rears (Bridgestone Turanzas) were on the treadwear indicators at 18K miles. I replaced those with Michelin Primacy's and they lasted until about mid-40's.

At that point the fronts still had 5mm in the centres but had scrubbed the edges so I changed them as they looked bad at first glance - but they would have lasted far longer.

It was at this change I had problems with Costco - they only had the fronts in stock and wanted to put them on the rear.

 

[190]

I'm still practicing tyre rotation but keep them on the same side if they are unidirectional. Once the fronts start to wear at the edges I put them on the back to even it out. Seems to have worked because I have done 31,000 on the current set of Michelin Energy tyres with 4.5mm left. They are mostly motorway miles which are very easy on tyres.

 

[Tezz]

It still never ceases to a amaze me how much people will pay for a service, if you get al, parts from OEM manufacturer, what's cost max £100-200 , how can anyone justifiy £1000 labour for a service you can have done why you wait

 

[Riva811]

I have the same experience with dealers and the service plan, they charge the plan but don't acutely do anything. Makes me question taking my car there in the first place. Last service w in December, I became extremely suspicious as they didn't record the service on the car ECU, key batteries not replaced, combination filter smells like dust.

 

[markjay]

It still never ceases to a amaze me how much people will pay for a service, if you get al, parts from OEM manufacturer, what's cost max £100-200 , how can anyone justifiy £1000 labour for a service you can have done why you wait

Agree in principle, though you should consider the labour cost as the difference between the cost of the genuine MB parts which will be more expensive (albeit sold with a margin to the dealer), and the total price. Which is why dealer servicing these days pretty much makes sense only when covered under a Service Care Plan.

 

[E55BOF]

Returning to the tyre replacement part of this discussion, I can’t remember when I last only replaced 2 tyres. Maybe it’s my driving style and maybe it’s the particular cars I’ve owned, but for over 30 years at least I’ve always had all four replaced at the same time without having needed to or been able to swap them around. With those bits of rubber being all that’s connecting my car to the road, I don’t want to be taking any chances. 3mm is the minimum point at which I change tyres so undoubtedly there have been times when a couple of the tyres will have been nearer to 4mm. It’s a big chunk of money to fork out at once, but I’m not prepared to put a price on my life, my family’s life, or anyone else’s life.

www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/miscellaneous/2016-10/qa-replacing-tyres-at-3mm-tread-an-absolute-waste-says-michelin-director/
https://www.fleetservicegb.co.uk/mi...-tyre-tread-depth-call-arguing-1-6mm-is-safe/

Hmmmm?

 

[Fastcar155]

Asymmetric and unidirectional tyres... on a staggered wheels car... no way you can rotate them....

Luckily assymetric tyres are not that common, and I don't have staggered wheels either, so I rotate my (unidirectional) tyres back-to-front.

I used to do this at every service, but with Covid mileage last year (and this year hasn't been much better so far), I think I'll start doing it every other service.

Hi , on my car Mercedes dealer have had to change 4 tyres on my car as instructed by MB although there rears had 6mm of thread on them.( Tyres changed at dealers expense.)

C207E400

 

[Riva811]

Agree in principle, though you should consider the labour cost as the difference between the cost of the genuine MB parts which will be more expensive (albeit sold with a margin to the dealer), and the total price. Which is why dealer servicing these days pretty much makes sense only when covered under a Service Care Plan.

Even so, looking at the E-class service kit, costs about £170 from the dealer. They charge another £500 to fit it and we are talking about activities that take roughly 1-2 hours. Still a rip-off.

 

[kam09]

Somethings gotta pay for those posh dealer lounges!

It still never ceases to a amaze me how much people will pay for a service, if you get al, parts from OEM manufacturer, what's cost max £100-200 , how can anyone justifiy £1000 labour for a service you can have done why you wa

 

[Deleted member 65149]

www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/miscellaneous/2016-10/qa-replacing-tyres-at-3mm-tread-an-absolute-waste-says-michelin-director/
https://www.fleetservicegb.co.uk/mi...-tyre-tread-depth-call-arguing-1-6mm-is-safe/

Hmmmm?

A clever bit of self-promotion from Michelin, but I fear it could be dangerously misinterpreted. They don't actually say that tyres are just as good at 1.6mm as at 3mm. What they said is that their premium tyres at 1.6mm are as good or even better than most budget tyres at 3mm and more. They don't even say that the performance of their premium tyres doesn't deteriorate between 3mm and 1.6mm, only that they perform just as well in the dry. Well of course they do. My concern is that the people who are unable or unwilling to buy premium brand tyres will keep their budget tyres on even longer in the new mistaken belief that a major tyre manufacturer has said that they work just as well right down to 1.6mm. Even many of those who can afford premium tyres will now keep them on until the final possible moment whilst believing that they're just as good. Unfortunately all those people will be going out in the wet, unaware that even Michelin agree that tyre performance drops quite dramatically below 3mm in those circumstance.

No matter what the Michelin Man tells us, I'm not prepared to put safety at risk for any environmental reasons.

 

[190]

www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/miscellaneous/2016-10/qa-replacing-tyres-at-3mm-tread-an-absolute-waste-says-michelin-director/
https://www.fleetservicegb.co.uk/mi...-tyre-tread-depth-call-arguing-1-6mm-is-safe/

I have some sympathy with what Michelin are saying as it's environmentally unfriendly to be disposing of tyres with 4mm of thread left. I've measured some new tyres at only have 7.4mm to start with.

I was though a little surprised to see the claim that Michelins have the same aquaplaning resistance at 1.6mm as a budget tyre at 3mm. That can't be applicable equally to all budget tyres as evacuation of water depends on the tread pattern with longitudinal grooves being better than other patterns. Michelins technology advantage for wet grip must be mostly in the rubber compound and some other tyres may be almost as good for evacuating water at the same tread depth. To keep the whole tyre safety vs tread depth issue in perspective, it's mostly in the wet that the issue exists at all, so just don't push the envelope in the wet. If you lose grip when driving normally you are doing something wrong. Yes there's the emergency situation but good driving should eliminate most of those as well.

Spare a thought for our American cousins who expect to get 100,000 miles out of a set of tyres. They can only be doing that because the tyre manufacturers are using harder compounds than they use in Europe.
It's not as clear cut as a simple figure like 1.6mm

One thing not addressed is tyre age. The rubber gradually get harder and loses grip with age such that even with good tread depth there comes a point at perhaps10 years old when tyres should be changed even though at this point they may still be as good as American tyres.

 

[E55BOF]

"A clever bit of self-promotion from Michelin..." I'm guessing you never use budget tyres. I think you should read what is in the article again. Of course you know better than Michelin's Research Director...

Motorcycle tyres may have only as little as 4mm tread to start with. Hmmmmm?