Alignment set up and double checked. Goodyear have told me to be at the top end of door sticker pressures. They’ve told me to monitor it.
Increased pressures been working on my car, 20k miles now and the tyres look as below, inside edge of the fronts is starting to go. I did swap front/rear 11k miles ago tho.
Rotating the tyres has saved you, i probably would have doubled my life by rotating but was unsure how much I’d compromise the handling with the 235 up front and 255 rear. Now that I’ve gone square I’ll be rotating regularly. You need to keep a close eye on the front pirellis, mine went from just having a light mark on the edge to showing the cords in a very short time and range.
I agree the rotating has helped but increasing pressures to max door sticker (44f 39r ) definitely gave an improvement in wear. I had to start doing 100 miles a day for work so needed to get everything I could out of the tyres, and 20k miles isnt too bad. Will be getting a new set of Pirelli's soon.
Bit of an update on this from me. Got both my front tyres changed and the near side tyre was in a shocking state. It’s so luck I had a blowout going in a straight line at a reasonable speed; it could have been a lot worse!! Fair play to Kwik-Fit, they undertook a tracking check on the car and confirmed the front alignment is pretty much spot on.
Yep that one has had it, you’d definitely have been changing a pair a long time ago had you not swapped.
Wow that is bad, that’s probably the worst I’ve seen in the sense that your tyre is worn down over a greater width than any of the rest, you’ve lost a LOT of that tread block. Pirelli will be glad to receive those to inspect.
Mines was in for oil service today 1 year old 5800 miles just been though the video and stepped through the tyre section frame at a time and my 255 fronts look pretty good there might be a very slight mark on the inside edges but no signs of abnormal wear...………….yet !
Is it not just me that thinks not only is there the inner shoulder wear but the rest of the tyre has a very weird wear pattern across it's width?
Looking from right to left, you have the major inner shoulder wear, the next groove in the tread seems to have 3(ish)mm of tread (you can see the blocks either side seem to peak at this groove) and then down to the tread wear indicators further to the left. I understand the tyres are wearing weirdly on the inside shoulder, just didn't know if anyone else had the same strangely less worn patch just inside the massive shoulder wear?
Folks require a bit of advice.. Have been shopping around for Tyres of late after the blowout incident and was talking to a well-regraded local tyre salesman. He could have ordered me the Pirelli’s for 216 all in. However he is of the opinion that it’s throwing money away for the issue to be unresolved and the same thing to happen to the tyres in another 11/12 thousand miles. He offered me a ‘budget’ option for my two fronts (255/30/19) for £70 each. I raised the issue regarding all four tyres needing to be the same however he said there’s no issue with changing the front two. Just wanting to know whether this is a pile of c*ck and bull or not? And would fitting budget tyres raise any issues with Audi regarding warranty etc? No faith in paying a significant amount of money for Pirelli to have a blowout again in a matter of months.
Legally you can have a different brand of tyre on the front axle than the rear. Although I do t think I’d be fitting some ditch finders on the RS3! Some have fitted 235 on the front wheels 8.5 and happy enough with the outcome. I’d either go for the same Pirelli again or if going 235 either Goodyear or Michelin
The pirelli p zero 255/30 and 235/45 are matched in rolling diameter, if you go for another brand up front there may be enough of a difference in size to set your traction control crazy or even affect the Haldex. You are better of going square with pirellis so you can rotate or replace all four with another brand.
Personally I'd echo this. I wouldn't risk a cheap contact patch of rubber in any car, let alone a one with reasonable performance. Plenty of videos on YT showing differences in breaking distances etc with cheaper tyres. I understand where your salesman's recommendation is coming from in looking out for your money, but would value the added safety (hoping I would never have cause to need it) and performance over a budget option - I suppose you pay your money and take your choice. Iv'e always looked at tyres as a safety option over and above performance, especially as I get older and have the kids in the car! I've been following @AudiNutta s Pirelli tire thread with interest and admiration of his tenacity! Pirelli do at least seem to be interested in looking at why their tyres are failing; as a result of this i'll most likely stick with another set of the Pzeros up front when mine fail and then if there is no resolution to the 'Prielli issue' (in quotations as I understand its now not a unique to Pirelli issue on this forum...) by next tyre change time go 235/35 Ps4s all round on staggered wheels to see how that goes. As usual, just my 2p worth!
What about the pzero R01 model. From what I can gather there as been no recorded problems with these. I’m very happy with them, and as soon as the rears have worn will be replacing like for like. I am a PFL owner so these cars setups can not be any different to the FL model.
Oh god, that’s an awful recommendation to make.. does he appreciate the car you have? You’d be taunting with death putting ditch finders on it. Change to the Pirelli RO1’s if you don’t want to risk the RO2 again, supposedly the RO1’s will be ok and would be interesting to see.
That’s great to hear you are sticking with Pirelli with the way they are looking into this, I’m with you there. Hopefully they will rectify this.
I have a friend who tried to fit RO1’s on his PFL, they weren’t available? So he fitted RO2’s and then had a blowout.
Having R01 tyres on my original wheels and R02 on my facelift wheels I find the R02 the better of the 2 for grip and noise. The R01 is noticeably noisier than the R02 tyre but they do run with nice even treadwear. My R02 255 is starting to wear on the inner edge too and that’s on pfl.
That’s interesting. Seems like this PZ4 compound on the RO2 really isn’t up to it. Perhaps it’s softer and less resilient to the camber on these cars.
Maybe, if it’s softer that’d probably explain why I find it quieter and better grip. Think it proves that this is a Pirelli problem and not a car setup alignment issue.
But T-800 threw a spanner in the works with that, his Goodyear’s are also experiencing strange wear. I personally think the car is set up to extremes and aren’t helping things, but the tyre supplied on the car should be built to withstand the stock car. One tyre might have a harder shoulder than another...
The Michelin have a square shoulder and appear to be a harder compound which maybe combating the edge wear. The Super sport Goodyear aren’t as square on the shoulders and are no noisier than the Pirelli’s either which would suggest they are a fairly soft compound.
I’m going to fit my R02 235’s from my facelift wheels and put them on the front and see if they wear. Never heard of anyone with 235 R02 complaining of this problem on square setup
There are two people out of 23 who’ve had the same issue with the square setup. 3 of those 23 couldn’t be bothered to reply to me to say what setup they were running.
I thought Blackcircles were cheap, they have the Pirelli 255.30.19 R02s at £220 each fitted !! After reading all the very interedting and useful posts on here and the other threads related to tyres sizes, tyre makes, tyre life, tyre / TC issues etc etc i think I'm going to stick with the OEM recommended tyres...!
Basing the ro2 softness on noise alone probably isn't a good idea as they have a foam insert for exactly the purpose of reducing noise don't think the r01 have this feature
Are you sure? Pretty sure the R01 doesn’t have pncs or whatever it’s called. I see R01 is 72db and R02 is 68db
My R01’s have the foam insert on the 255 fronts Still have the oem Pirelli’s from my PFL car in storage.
Can't see any reference to R01 being PNCS(Pirelli noise cancelling system), make a big thing of it on the R02 blurb...........but could be hidden somewhere
