New Tires

[scottt]

Ok, did a bunch of searching, and never really found the answer I was looking for. Here's the situation.


I've had the car 6 years as of today. I'll soon be combining households, and won't be using the car as my daily commuter anymore. Car will be paid off next month (bye bye 0% interest for 6 years). Insurance is about $100 a month.

I need new tires. The original ones have 36k miles on them, and really need to be replaced.

Highest buy offer I've been given is $9800. 6 months ago it was $17,600 (sigh!).

I don't know if I should just keep the car. Would be handy for small quick trips, etc. If I keep it, new LRR tires are $1000. Was able to snag "normal" tires for $400 during a Walmart Black Friday sale.

How much of a "hit" will I take not having LRR tires on the car? Still wondering if I should even keep it, as I won't spend $100 in gas on my ICE car each month. I have a full Ford warranty for 8 years, no deductible.

Regardless, I would get rid of the car at 8 years (end of battery warranty).

Thoughts?

Thx!

 

[jghall00]

Ok, did a bunch of searching, and never really found the answer I was looking for. Here's the situation.


I've had the car 6 years as of today. I'll soon be combining households, and won't be using the car as my daily commuter anymore. Car will be paid off next month (bye bye 0% interest for 6 years). Insurance is about $100 a month.

I need new tires. The original ones have 36k miles on them, and really need to be replaced.

Highest buy offer I've been given is $9800. 6 months ago it was $17,600 (sigh!).

I don't know if I should just keep the car. Would be handy for small quick trips, etc. If I keep it, new LRR tires are $1000. Was able to snag "normal" tires for $400 during a Walmart Black Friday sale.

How much of a "hit" will I take not having LRR tires on the car? Still wondering if I should even keep it, as I won't spend $100 in gas on my ICE car each month. I have a full Ford warranty for 8 years, no deductible.

Regardless, I would get rid of the car at 8 years (end of battery warranty).

Thoughts?

Thx!

Since it's paid off, the biggest costs will be depreciation and insurance. Do the math on those, vs some other vehicle, and see how the numbers shake out. My personal take is that a paid-off vehicle is not to be replaced unless it's costing a substantial amount in maintenance, insurance, etc. Interest rates are substantially higher right now and you never know how another used vehicle has been treated. I would keep it until the warranty is done. The tires are a non-issue. Anyone buying this car is checking for remaining tread only. If you're barely driving it, the range hit won't be significant enough to make a difference. I put Yokohama YK740s on mine, and the range hit was around 10%. The traction improvement, especially in the wet, was worth it. If you're not maxing out the range on the vehicle regularly, the range hit shouldn't be an issue unless your electricity rate is very high. For me, the 10% range loss was under $10 per month in electricity.

 

[triangles]

I had intended to keep my '14 until something failed that was not fixable and then send it to the junk yard. I figured I'd eventually try building my own battery pack and have fun trying to figure out how to get the car to play nice with a non-factory battery. However after hearing of 2 same year FFE's have coolant leak battery failures a month or two out of warranty, I checked how much Carvana would offer and they gave me north of $8k back in January for an 8+ year old car with 43k miles. I didn't want to sell but that was a large chunk of change for a car that could be come only worth scrap at any given moment, I'd have been a fool not to sell. Now had they only offered $5k, I would have gambled and just kept it.

I think for your situation it sounds like you wouldn't use it much to make it worth it and you're gonna get rid of it in a couple years regardless so I would think you would want to take what you can get for it now. Especially with supply catching up with EV demand over the next couple years you will get very little for it a couple years from now.

 

[scottt]

I had intended to keep my '14 until something failed that was not fixable and then send it to the junk yard. I figured I'd eventually try building my own battery pack and have fun trying to figure out how to get the car to play nice with a non-factory battery. However after hearing of 2 same year FFE's have coolant leak battery failures a month or two out of warranty, I checked how much Carvana would offer and they gave me north of $8k back in January for an 8+ year old car with 43k miles. I didn't want to sell but that was a large chunk of change for a car that could be come only worth scrap at any given moment, I'd have been a fool not to sell. Now had they only offered $5k, I would have gambled and just kept it.

I think for your situation it sounds like you wouldn't use it much to make it worth it and you're gonna get rid of it in a couple years regardless so I would think you would want to take what you can get for it now. Especially with supply catching up with EV demand over the next couple years you will get very little for it a couple years from now.

Yep, seems to be the way to go. Car insurance keeps going up and up, and I can't see paying $100 a month to insure something that may only get driven 200 miles a month or so.

 

[VOLT KAR]

Just curious, were you able to find someone to mount the non-LLR tires?
Costco refused to mount tires for my Focus EV that were not LLR...

 

[Anti_Climax]

I had Discount Tire get me the Non-EV version of these: Turanza EV | Turanza EV Tire Detail Page

Might see if one explicitly badged for EV is acceptable

 

[davideos]

I haven't had LRR tires on my car for awhile and Costco always put them on my car, no problem. I knew they wouldn't put a different sized tire on, but I didn't even think twice about LRR or not. It might just be the person you talked to, but you might try again but call them first.

 

[PlainTom]

When we bought our 2017 FFE (a few months ago) its tires were nearly bald. The guy at our local Belle Tire was happy to install non-LRR tires on the car. Given that the car's role would be to play second fiddle to our '23 ID.4 and get limited use (retirees!), I didn't figure having LRR tires would make much practical difference.

 

[Anti_Climax]

Mine EATS tires. Not sure if others have been seeing the same. Then again, AZ heat is not what they are designed for.

 

[skyguy_6153]

Discount Tire here in Florida mounted my BridgeStone Potenza Sport tires. Make the FFE handle like its on rails and provide very good grip for rainy conditions. They are however noticeably louder than the stock LRR tires.

 

[scottt]

When we bought our 2017 FFE (a few months ago) its tires were nearly bald. The guy at our local Belle Tire was happy to install non-LRR tires on the car. Given that the car's role would be to play second fiddle to our '23 ID.4 and get limited use (retirees!), I didn't figure having LRR tires would make much practical difference.

What range do you get in the summer? 115 is the "usual". Thx!

 

[PlainTom]

Our pack has degraded by ~20% (+/- 5%) so the max range estimate I've seen is 105 miles. Around town at speeds under 50 we clock around 250-280 watts/mile. I didn't have the old tires on long enough to get a feel for their range/efficiency, so can't compare. Sorry.

 

[wind_driven]

Ok, did a bunch of searching, and never really found the answer I was looking for. Here's the situation.


I've had the car 6 years as of today. I'll soon be combining households, and won't be using the car as my daily commuter anymore. Car will be paid off next month (bye bye 0% interest for 6 years). Insurance is about $100 a month.

I need new tires. The original ones have 36k miles on them, and really need to be replaced.

Highest buy offer I've been given is $9800. 6 months ago it was $17,600 (sigh!).

I don't know if I should just keep the car. Would be handy for small quick trips, etc. If I keep it, new LRR tires are $1000. Was able to snag "normal" tires for $400 during a Walmart Black Friday sale.

How much of a "hit" will I take not having LRR tires on the car? Still wondering if I should even keep it, as I won't spend $100 in gas on my ICE car each month. I have a full Ford warranty for 8 years, no deductible.

Regardless, I would get rid of the car at 8 years (end of battery warranty).

Thoughts?

Thx!

This isn’t the first place I’ve seen mention of getting rid of the EFF at/just before 8 years, because of the battery warranty. On one level, I understand, because a replacement battery pack is so expensive. Still—what is the data on this? Does every EFF battery pack fail just after 8 years? Yes, it will fail eventually but what is the data on when this happens?

This, of course, can’t really be known yet for the 2017’s (hasn’t been in existence 8 years yet!) But maybe a good guess could be made (are the battery packs similar enough?) for earlier models.
Thoughts?

 

[wind_driven]

I just realized my above reply doesn’t particularly belong in a New Tires thread but I’m not sure how to move it!

 

[scottt]

Wind driven, I would keep the car past 8 years, however if anything goes wrong with the battery after 8 years, it basically totals out the car. Right now I can get $9800 for my car. That number would be zero if something happened to the battery off warranty. I'd keep the car and drive it into the ground if I could get replacement batteries for a couple grand instead of the $14,000 or such people have been quoted.

 

[bradleydad]

Our focus was theoretically in warranty when it died but no replacement batteries are available. The battery died suddenly because of an internal fault. The car went from being a usable vehicle with resale value to a piece of junk in the blink of an eye. I understand this seems to happen around 60,000 miles.

 

[jghall00]

Our focus was theoretically in warranty when it died but no replacement batteries are available. The battery died suddenly because of an internal fault. The car went from being a usable vehicle with resale value to a piece of junk in the blink of an eye. I understand this seems to happen around 60,000 miles.

I hate to keep this going in a tire thread. But the pre 2017 battery failures seem to relate to pack swelling due to defective design. The 2017+ models don't have this swelling issue, but at least one person on the FB forum had a 2017 pack fail, resulting in a vehicle buyback. I would keep the car forever if the battery could be replaced for a reasonable price, but given the unavailability of replacement parts and the inability of many Ford dealerships to service this vehicle, I have no intention of keeping it beyond the warranty expiration, which for me is around March of 2025. Still undecided on what to replace it with. Looking at a used GV60. My wife's I-pace really elevated the driving experience. Everywhere I go driving is fun, as long as I'm not stuck in traffic.