Rivians’ Tires Are Wearing Out in as Little as 6k Miles. Here’s Why | Hacker News Reader

Rivians’ Tires Are Wearing Out in as Little as 6k Miles. Here’s Why

thedrive.com

26 pointsSonOfKyuss17 comments

Not sure why using fwd mostly above 35mph would cause considerable wear unless they're also using a ton of acceleration too. I believe the Tesla Model S at one point also has a mostly FWD bias when under low load (cruising) since it has the more efficient motor in the front.

Seems to me the issue is the second point raised, with variable camber at variable ride height, is much more likely to be the issue.

The other obvious issue: it's a super heavy vehicle, and due to way traction control works on an EV, hard acceleration won't necessarily cause tire squealing... But it definitely will cause accelerated tire wear.

Most AWD cars are heavily biased towards the front tires at cruising speeds. It's more fuel efficient.

Our 2020 AWD car, only kicks AWD on at moderate loads or slippery conditions.

This is not true- AWD bias depends on the platform, and not because driving the front wheels are more efficient. Subaru AWD drives the front and back equally. BMW XDrive is rear biased. Audi Quattro drives both axles equally, Quattro Ultra prefers the front axle. Lexus IS AWD prefers the rear axle.

Your car probably was on a FWD platform with an AWD differential thrown in, which is the reason it drives the front wheels most of the time. If you were driving a BMW X3 for example, you’d have RWD by default unless you opt for AWD.

It's even more complicated than that!

Subaru has 4 different AWD systems, the only one that is a true 50/50 split is installed on their manual transmission non-sporty cars. If you've got a CVT, you get a 60/40 split. Their sporty cars are rear-biased, either 45/55 or 41/59.

Audi Quattro uses a Torsen center diff that is 50/50 or 40/60 based on the model, and the Quattro Ultra is like a Haldex system but with an extra clutch at the rear so that when it is running in pure FWD mode the drive shaft doesn't spin at all. This is more fuel efficient than your typical part-time AWD setup.

Most, is the key word.

The 3 examples you picked are performance-centric vehicles. Performance vehicles tend to be rear-wheel or equal. You simply can't get the performance characteristics out of a front-wheel biased car.

Most AWD systems are doing a 60/40. Many of those are even further biasing towards the front wheels during cruising conditions. It's far safer for the average driver to have a FWD-biased car.

Scrubbing rubber off your tires with excessive toe can't be doing the range any favors either.

This seems like an exceptionally dumb oversight, particularly for something called "Conserve" mode.

The guy from the shop who installed my new tires said his Ford Ranger tires wore out in about 6k miles. My Tacoma's tires lasted almost 50k. Sometimes car manufacturers cheap out on factory tires

> The guy from the shop who installed my new tires said his Ford Ranger tires wore out in about 6k miles. My Tacoma's tires lasted almost 50k. Sometimes car manufacturers cheap out on factory tires

TFA is about a Rivian with high-end Pirelli tires, this is not a mfr cheaping out situation.

It's clearly an alignment issue, which is not surprising at all when it's related to a deliberate ride height change.

Vehicles with independent suspension tend to have "bump steer", which varies toe with suspension travel. When the vehicle is designed to operate for sustained periods at substantially different ride heights, its suspension geometry has to adapt to these modes or it'll exhibit crap like this.

Fwiw, i have found Pirelli to be overpriced, overhyped, and underperforming. Dunlop, michilen, and continental all surpass them in quality, price, and performance. They seem to still be riding their boomer era reputation.

Tires make a huge difference in MPG, stopping distance etc. Every economy car I've checked ships with much more expensive tires than you'd probably bother replacing them with since they can eek out an extra MPG or two for the window sticker.

When I ran over a nail in my Prius C I swapped the stock tires for the cheapest set the dealer had. It was $80/tire instead of $230. My MPG did go down ever so slightly but when you're talking 51 to 49 who cares, I'd never make that money back in saved gas. They grip better in winter too.

6,000 miles is pretty extreme, but maybe the Ford needed to go with really soft tires to get the handling characteristics they wanted? Going by the Ford we used to own I think their engineers are a make-it-work bunch and don't care too much about longevity (which is too bad, other than horrendous reliability it was a great car).

Ouch. I had a car 20 years ago that took Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3's every 18 months / 8-10k miles that were $1400 when you got a deal. A vehicle is designed around a particular tire, and you don't have many options when they're made for low profile, softer tires of a specific rare tire&wheel size. I laugh every time I see a vehicle with changed rims because they've just defenestrated all of the dynamic engineering analysis that went into the original design.

Unless the person swapping the wheels knows about KPI angles and offsets. Some cars can benefit from shorter and wider wheels. I know what you mean though some dickhead just slap their impalas on 23s and call it a day.

All that shit dust Washed into rivers and oceans. Freaking tragic.

What alternative do you propose?

Focus on better public transport? E-bikes?

What solution do you propose ? Keep producing mountains of microplastics?

Tesla Model S / X tires are known to wear out quickly along inner edge.

Brake based torque vectoring is crap. Change my mind.

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