50pascals

I suppose we are both right. My point is that tread depth has no bearing on the structural integrity of the tire, or the likelihood for a repair to last or fail.

I also know insurance companies "pull the strings" of at least one shop in the next town over. In our town, my friend has a local independent shop, so I hear a lot of the industry buzz from him.

So perhaps it is a "structural ripping off" as opposed to the old fashioned face to face kind. Either way, the tire can be a repaired, a used tire would work just fine, and I wouldn't grind the rubber off a new tire for this repair.

BTW - tires are a pretty good profit center for a repair shop. Especially 4 tires on a fancy European car.

IknowHuhA6

If in a financial pinch... definitely would at least match the two fronts or both rears so that there's equal tread at each end of the car. This way the front/rear differential split doesn't have a weird situation where both front or both rear tires are different contact and size on left/right side.

Replacing just one... yeah I can see how that wouldn't be the safest for any car if tread is significantly different, especially on our quattro's.

Just my 2 cents, not a professional opinion just a personal one. Obviously fully correct procedure is all 4 per manufacturer. After all.... we all follow manufacturer instructions to a "T" on everything we own anyways right?

snagitseven

One or two new (or used) tires could work so long as all four tread depths ended up being within 4/32" of each other and brand/model were all the same. It's still the Quattro qualifiers no matter how you slice and dice it. This is from Audi.

superswiss

Even matching the tires per axle is an issue. Somebody on the S5 forum has recent experience with this. His tire shop put two new tires, different brand on one end of the car and the result was a very confused ESP going off for no reason. Once he matched the tires on the other axle all was back to normal. The reality is that if you want your AWD vehicle to last and operate as designed, make sure that all 4 tires are same size, brand, thread pattern and thread wear is within 4/32" of each other.

Nyuni

Had this issue recently. As stated by others, manual says all tires have to be within 4/32" of each other. I had just recently (within a few months) gotten a new set, and ended up taking sidewall damage on one tire. After checking the tread-depth spec of the new tire, and comparing it to the rest of them, all tires would be within 2/32" of each other. So I only replaced the one tire. Same brand/type, of course.

Have no adverse impacts that I'm aware of, and I'm assuming that as long as I'm within Audi-stated spec, I shouldn't have any. Once you mismatch outside of the stated spec, all bets are off, as it were.

El Gato

I totally agree. I never buy tires from the dealer or other repair shop. I always shop online, typically end up buying from Tire Rack, even with shipping it's cheaper than a dealer or most shops who mark up the prices, there are usually sales and rebates as well. I have never had a problem taking my own tires to a shop and asking them to mount and balance them for me for $15-20 per tire. The mounting and balancing is all I would ever pay a shop for regarding tires. They all mark things up.

That said, most of the time the shop is going to advise you if your tires are wearing down and getting close to replacement time, that is not a rip off, it's just them advising you on a possible safety issue. Traction and handling and stopping ability become issues as tires get near their tread limit. Tires also lose their integrity over time due to aging and the elements. That is why there is a way to check the dates on them. It's not hard to buy a cheap tire gauge for a dollar or two if you want to check exact tread depth on your own if you don't trust the shop, but most shops I have dealt with are advising on tires for safety too not just for profit.

IMO, not much point in driving a very nice A6 with lots of expensive features and performance and handling ability and going cheap on tires. Tires are an important part of making sure your car is safe on the road. I don't advise trying to squeeze every possible mile out of tire until the tread is practically gone or the cords start to show through. I know people like that, they can afford tires but they just want to squeeze everything possible out of them. Tires and brakes are things I don't mind spending on to keep them at peak performance. My view.

KevinGary

My local tire shop always matches Tire Rack's prices, and the local shop's price includes mounting and balancing.

CHIO

same here! actually beats the price sometimes!

culi

Depends on how much thread on the remaining tires.

I had a blow out on OEM tires around 8K miles. I replaced just that one tire. I forgot how much thread life was left on the other three tries.

Around 15-20K miles I start hearing road noise. It was low at first, but got louder with increase in mileage. It was so bad that I thought it was a bad wheel bearing. But once I changed all 4 tires, the noise went away.

My opinion is if there are little thread life left on the other tires, I would replace them all.

snagitseven

Once again, Audi states all four tires should be within 4/32" to each other.