2015 Volkswagen Golf GTI - 2015 Volkswagen Golf GTI Long-Term Road Test

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2015 Volkswagen Golf GTI - 2015 Volkswagen Golf GTI Long-Term Road Test

Our tire troubles continue with long-term cars, this time with our 2015 Volkswagen Golf GTI, which sustained a severe cut in the left rear tire.

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desmolicious

Does it look fresh/recent? (I can't tell from the photo) Is your LT fleet manager meant to perform safety checks on your vehicles?

ez2be

I'll be very curious to hear what you select as replacement rubber as I hate the Bridgestone RE97 A/S Grand Touring tires that came on my GTI and am very anxious to replace them with a proper set of Ultra High Performance A/S tires. I'm waiting to see how the recently released Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06, Kumho ECSTA 4X II, and BF Goodrich G-Force Comp-2 stack up against the class leading Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus and Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3. Hope Tire Rack posts some test results soon.

Oh yeah, I forgot you guys are located in CA and buy summer rubber.

iamthestig

I had the same thing happen to my 2013 Passat to a front tire, likely caused by a pothole on the torn-up roads here in the Philly suburbs. The tire was holding pressure just fine, but the gash was so deep you could see the belts. I replaced it (along with the other front tire as the set already had 25,000 miles) as a safety precaution.

kirkhilles1

I'll be curious to see if you replace one, two or all 4 tires. Given that they only have 10k on them, I'd personally be just replacing one, but...

fordson1

ez2be said:

I'll be very curious to hear what you select as replacement rubber as I hate the Bridgestone RE97 A/S Grand Touring tires that came on my GTI and am very anxious to replace them with a proper set of Ultra High Performance A/S tires. I'm waiting to see how the recently released Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06, Kumho ECSTA 4X II, and BF Goodrich G-Force Comp-2 stack up against the class leading Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus and Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3. Hope Tire Rack posts some test results soon.

Oh yeah, I forgot you guys are located in CA and buy summer rubber.

My MkVI has the A/S 3s. They are wonderful...I think the best UHP A/S tire IF you don't have to deal with snow or ice. I have 10k miles on them...they are wearing wonderfully well and seem to like cross-rotation just fine, which on this car I think is the best way to rotate them. As the test say, they really do act like a summer tire. They are not the best at noise or treadwear, but are close to the top. For snow, there are better choices, but good snow performance still seems largely linked with mushy steering response. The Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric All-Season is another good choice.

I don't drive my car in the winter...it's under a car cover and I don't care about its tires' snow performance.

fordson1

The one upside here, as far as the LT GTI is concerned, is that its 10k service/tire rotation is due. Considering the tire has been on the rear, I would take a treadwear reading, and if it's worn less than 30% (reasonable wear level for a summer tire at 10k miles, sitting on the rear of a FWD hot hatch), I would just get another tire mounted and do the rotation. I would first check the RR tire to see if it's wearing well...if it's not, I would replace the cut one AND the RR, get an alignment and do the rotation. If they were all wearing funky, then get the alignment and replace them all...life is too short to listen to a cupped/chopped tire or two talking to you for 20k miles.