2013-Front Tires almost bald <7500 miles

My front tires are almost completely bald. However, the back tires seem to be in great shape with a very healthy amount of tread. I have ~7,200 miles on the leaf and have owned it for exactly 1 year & 3 days.

Page 10 of the maintenance manual says to rotate the tires every 7500 miles.

Any idea on the best way to go about getting those front tires replaced under warranty?
Any idea why they wore down so damn fast?

Bridgestone Ecopias or Michelin Energy Savers?

Some have complained about poor treadwear on the Ecopias. OTOH, like many others, we have 20,000 miles on ours and there is little wear so far.

gotkwah said:

My front tires are almost completely bald. However, the back tires seem to be in great shape with a very healthy amount of tread. I have ~7,200 miles on the leaf and have owned it for exactly 1 year & 3 days.

Page 10 of the maintenance manual says to rotate the tires every 7500 miles.

Any idea on the best way to go about getting those front tires replaced under warranty?
Any idea why they wore down so damn fast?

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A number of possibilities. The Ecopias admittedly are not long-wearing but 7200 miles is a bit extreme. Agressive driving, misalignment, or driving the wrong pressure are the three most likely. Or maybe you just got a bad set of tires (less likely). I'm not sure if there is a treadwear warranty.

Are they bald all the way across, on one side, in the middle, on the edges, etc…? Are the 2 fronts worn similarly? If you know it's not from aggressive driving then you need to rule out alignment problems before just slapping another set of tires on. Also what tire pressure do you use?

Ecopias.
fronts both worn very similarly.
its definitely possible that low pressure has exacerbated the problem, as i find myself filling up more than i would expect. (you can also see slightly more wear on edges than in the middle, but even the middle is almost completely gone.) I feel like another 500 miles and they will be completely bald.

See pics here for comparison between front & back tires. first 2 are front, last 2 are back.
(pic actually makes front look not so bad. but believe me when i say there is almost no depth left ot the treads, even in the middle - maybe i need to take another pic with a penny in the tread for comparison)

Agreed those look pretty bad. All four of our tires look similar to your rears after their second rotation just below 20,000 miles. I'm starting to see some signs of the rubber degrading, so I expect wear to accelerate going forward.

I will note that there is some discussion on this forum that indicates that running these tires at 40 PSI or slightly above results in more even wear across the tread. This may be due to the weight of the car, but that is just conjecture. That's what we've been using. If you've been filling them frequently, that likely means your average pressure has been fairly low. I will say that we have had no problem with the air leaking out of our Ecopias (until my wife ran over a screw last week).

Definitely get it aligned before putting new tires on the front.

I also run at 40 PSI and check tire pressure every two weeks. Combined with very gentle driving, tires are still at 7/32 of an inch after 30,000 miles.

With spirited driving, the Ecrapias burn up quickly. The LEAF is also a heavy car for the size tires it has, so that takes a toll.

any chance at getting nissan to change the tires for free under warranty. their manual clearly says to rotate every 7500, so its not like i havent been following directions.

i have a year left on the lease and need safe tires.

If your TPS has never warned you of low tire pressure, you may have a chance at getting them replaced under warranty, but expect it to be "prorated."

My Ecopias were both shot by 20,000 miles, but I will admit to rather "spirited" acceleration. I love the way the Leaf launches from a stop light. Even with the traction control though, the tires are slipping, causing increased wear, so I'm trying to take it a little easier on the Michelin's that replaced them. I doubt the dealer is going to do anything, as the fact that only the fronts are work out is a pretty clear sign of abuse. In my mind, its one of few undesirable consequences of owning an electric car, having all that instant torque on tap.

keydiver said:

I love the way the Leaf launches from a stop light. Even with the traction control though, the tires are slipping...

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Would it be possible for you to launch hard from a stop and see how the power lights come on? In my '14 SL it takes a couple of seconds to ramp up to all of them being lit, and initially there are only a few lit. (And no, it's not in ECO mode )

DaveInAvl said:

keydiver said:

I love the way the Leaf launches from a stop light. Even with the traction control though, the tires are slipping...

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Would it be possible for you to launch hard from a stop and see how the power lights come on? In my '14 SL it takes a couple of seconds to ramp up to all of them being lit, and initially there are only a few lit. (And no, it's not in ECO mode )

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This is to prevent excessive tire slip, but more so to prevent motor heat. 80kW with little air flow is going to heat up VERY fast.

The motor and inverter are liquid cooled so this is not really a consideration...

mctom987 said:

This is to prevent excessive tire slip, but more so to prevent motor heat. 80kW with little air flow is going to heat up VERY fast.

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TomT said:

The motor and inverter are liquid cooled so this is not really a consideration...

mctom987 said:

This is to prevent excessive tire slip, but more so to prevent motor heat. 80kW with little air flow is going to heat up VERY fast.

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Because liquid cooling is magic.

The liquid is still air cooled. With no air flow, the volume of liquid rapidly heats up.

The 1/4 second delay in full torque was engineered to save the final drive gear. It ensures that all the slack is taken out of the drive gear before the sudden impact of 100% torque is applied.

RePo said:

The 1/4 second delay in full torque was engineered to save the final drive gear. It ensures that all the slack is taken out of the drive gear before the sudden impact of 100% torque is applied.

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250ms is a LOT of slack. This is probably closer to 1/100 second.
still doesn't explain seconds 0.25 to 3.

The thermodynamic capacity of the amount of coolant in that Leaf system is such that it would barely feel that amount of heat for such a short time... I just ran the math and assuming an 80% efficient motor (which is likely low), the coolant temperature would rise 2.2C after 10 seconds with a full 80Kw to the motor... Plus, there is a fan for the radiator which kicks in when needed... The bottom line is that the delay has nothing to do with cooling and was far more likely introduced to limit potential wheel spin and initial torque on the driveline.

mctom987 said:

The liquid is still air cooled. With no air flow, the volume of liquid rapidly heats up.

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Is that also assuming an even distribution? I have absolutely no idea about the flow rates for the coolant, but most systems have a somewhat linear load-based flow rate. I also don't know the volume of the coolant.

I'm guessing it's has a thermal capacity somewhat similar to water.

if there is about 4L of coolant, 20kW of heat would raise the temperature ~1°C per second. Significantly higher than the 0.22 you came out to, but still insignificant in terms of performance. 20L of coolant would come out to around what you calculated, but seems a little high.

mctom987 said:

TomT said:

The motor and inverter are liquid cooled so this is not really a consideration...

mctom987 said:

This is to prevent excessive tire slip, but more so to prevent motor heat. 80kW with little air flow is going to heat up VERY fast.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Because liquid cooling is magic.

The liquid is still air cooled. With no air flow, the volume of liquid rapidly heats up.

Click to expand...

We're talking about a quarter-second slew to full power. The coolant could handle that brief heat input without needing the vehicle to be in motion. Besides which there is a coolant fan.

getting back on topic here:

I brought the car to the dealer at 7500 miles for the first service (which is basically just a tre rotation) and as expexted they pointed out that the front tires were bald. What surprised me was that the guy says there is NO WARRANTY AT ALL on tires from Nissan for ANY new car. is that true?!

There was no discussion of abuse or anything like that. He just said that nissans (and he said he thinks other companies are the same) dont warranty any of their tires on new cars.

What are my options here? For now I told them to rotate and put the good ones in the front and bad ones in the back. Im wondering if i can ride out the second year of the lease like that? Seems like the back tire barely wore down at all.