Saw this story about one owner's experience trying to claim tread wear warranty from Continental:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/continental-tire-warranty-mileage-exaggerated-1.5055006

Basically, it seems to tell us to place little or no value on tread wear warranties, because they are unlikely to be honored anyway.

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

thanks for that link. I am amazed at how tire companies or rather the retailers and installers get away with this!
I have never had any issues over a tire warranty because I usually drive so few miles, rotating cars as I often do that tires are out dated and I replace them when they show signs of cracking in the sidewalls.
The problem I have with Tire Co's (Bridgestone specifically!) is they discontinue a certain model / tire and when you need just one or two they try to sell you on the Newer style tire and tell you its "improved" tread characteristics or rubber compound or whatever they think of to convince one that a complete set of 4 new tires is necessary. Like telling me I should buy the new Run Flats, which I specifically did not want.

I have purchased the replacement insurance offered when I get my tires (shipped from Discount Tire Direct) and one time I drove over a paper sack which had something sharp in it which punctured the edge of the outer tread right at the sidewall and I got a new tire no questions asked. At something like $12 per tire that's worth considering against the price of performance tires.
DDH

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'95 E320 Wagon my favorite road car. '99 E300D wolf in sheeps body, '87 300D Sportline suspension, '79 300TD w/ 617.952 engine at 367,750 and counting!

Thanks for the link OP

30,000 KM = 19,000 miles in 5 years. / 3,800 miles per year. That is really a short distance for the tires to be worn out, something else is going on here.

The car owner states he bought the tires based on great web revues, if these tires were inherently bad you would think that others would have posted bad revues.

There are many gaps in the article, it does not show pics of the worn tires, does not provide proof of tire rotations / alignments, does not state what type of roads are on either end of his " short 15 km one way paved highway commute " or if he tries to get up snow / ice covered covered inclines spinning the tires all the way up.

Gravel roads greatly reduce tire life as well as stop / start / turn driving. Even driving slow in a tight radius on rough asphalt / concrete will leave black marks as tread is scrubbed off.

Even the " We hate all automotive businesses " APA states: " The APA's Iny calls Renaud's case "an anomaly," because although tires tend to fall short of stated mileage claims, his experience was extreme. "

Even if he never rotated the tires, the rears of a front drive car barely experience wear and would still be near full thread.

I'd also like to know what other cars he owns, swapping tires / wheels to a primary high mile car, wearing them out and swapping back to the secondary car in order to get free tires is a possibility.

Apparently the area where he lives requires annual vehicle safety inspections and part of this would include tire depth. I'd like to see a paper trail showing the rapid wear between inspections.

I loves me this part ... so driving fast?

I was denied a price match guarantee once on a new set of tires when I was also due a tread wear warranty credit. They had no good explanation as to why and said it was either one or the other but eventually relented because there was nothing stated in either policy that prevented them from being combined.

edit: I'm remembering now that the sales guy's angle was that my per tire cost was less whatever the warranty credit was and therefore lower than the Tire Rack price I asked them to match, to which I responded that the warranty was on the old tire and independent of the new tire cost. Had I asked for the price match upfront before they okayed the warranty credit they probably would have looked for (and found) a reason to deny the warranty.

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Watch him go!!! link

#dontdealwithkahlil