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Lesson learned! Buy a spare OEM tire.

3.2K views 22 replies 17 participants last post by  mheyman  
#1 ·
Got a nail close to the sidewall of the tire today. Only 14,000 miles on them. Did not want to replace. No one would touch it or patch it. Tried all the major tire chains and no one stocks tires for the 2015 STI. Everywhere had to order them. The cheapos were 1-2 days out and the OEM Dunlops were a 2-3 week wait :eek: Took a chance and went to local subaru dealer parts dept and they had one on the shelf so I bought it and had a local tire shop install it. If I knew they were this hard to get I would have bought one along time ago and stored it especially since I need this car everyday. Lesson learned. If you need to daily drive your STI and dont have a spare car make sure you have one of these tires or you may be SOL some day. Oh and everybody wanted $50+ more than what the dealer charged for the tire FYI.
 
#2 ·
I experienced the exact same thing with about 3,000 miles. Got a nail in the sidewall. Couldn't repair. No one in the area stocked the tire, including the dealership. Discount Tire was courteous enough to give me a loaner tire (at no cost) so I could still drive my car until they got my tire in stock. Great customer service!

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#7 ·
As long as they are the same tire with the same tread pattern there shouldn't be an issue. I had a friend that was experiencing issues when a tire shop put a different tire on his car as a loaner. (he had to wait a week or so for the tires he wanted to come in) Since the tread pattern was different it cause a really loud grinding sound at low speeds because the tires wasn't rotating at the same speed.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Tirerack is the way to go. They will shave the tire to required depth and over night it. I ran into the same thing. I think without over nighting it they took 3days. I could find my tire but no one local to shave it. They saved me big time. Track Rudy their rep on here down. He'll take care of you.

Those dunlops are over half life at 14k. You'll def need a shaved tire. I only managed 25k out of them and ive averaged 40k over my last 2 sets of summer tires. The conti dw and the bridgestone s-04

On a side note find a local tire shop not a chain. Those places can fix just about anything. The chains won't touch anything that could be a liability they probably have Corp regulations for those.
 
#6 · (Edited)
The dunlops are different for 2015+ than they were for the 08+ cars. The 2015+ dunlops have been reported to be getting around 30K compared to 15-20K for the other ones. Anyways I thought about the tread difference but my tires all still look brand new with tons of meat on them and no lights have come on yet so time will tell.

Doing some research shows that subaru specs that the tires have to be within 2/32 of each other in order to not cause damage. The New tire measures 9/32 and the other 3 are between 7/32 and 8/32 So I may have gotten lucky as far as the AWD lights go.
 
#9 ·
Yes no shop wants to touch these types of holes..... but guys, plug that shit and drive on. I have plugs in the side walls of my snow tires and one right ont he corner. I am sure there is no shop that would fix it. I pluged it and drove all winter with it no problem, zero leak. And I spin my tires a bunch in the snow all winter and did an ice auto cross with the plug in. I also had a plug in my stock dunlap on the edge - got a nail at the track! I plugged it and drove on. Drove 4 more months with that plug and did 5 auto crosses on it. Zero problems and zero leaks.
Upgraded to RE71's this summer, woooooot these babies stick!

Almost any nail hole can be plugged easy and it will last. I have drifter friends who plug tires and drive them to the wires with no issues at all. Dont waste your money when a shop says you "need" a new tire.
 
#11 ·
yeah I was going to do that. I was thinking we have been doing it for years and now all of a sudden it is a forbidden sin. The problem is I cant find any auto parts stores that sell those old fashioned tire plugs anymore. Can probably find them online but I needed the tire done that night.
 
#20 ·
I've always just used this type of situation as an opportunity to try new tires. The shops around here will usually buy the remaining good tires from me for a discount off my new ones. I've been through a lot of tires since I started driving Subarus.
 
#23 ·
Yes, yes, yes on cars that don't see over the speed limit. That excludes many of us. Sure it can be done. I don't want to die (or worse not quite die) over it though.


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