Question: I just installed new tires on my Jeep. I’m just curious—how many miles will wear down 1/32 inch on my tire’s tread?
Answer: Your mileage depends on the tires you choose.
Among the tires we examined:
- All-season and all-weather tires: 8,750-9,300 miles per 1/32 inch
- Sport, summer tires: 2,666 miles per 1/32 inch
- Winter tires: 4,700 miles per 1/32 inch
To get these numbers, we used a few tires’ tread-life warranties, which indicate how many miles the manufacturer expects the tire to travel before the tread gets worn down to 2/32 inches and the tire must be replaced.
Let’s look at the Bridgestone Driveguard Plus, an all-season tire that has an initial depth of 9/32 inches, a warranty of about 65,000 miles, and a Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG) treadwear rating of 640. The UTQG rating gives you an indication of how quickly a tire will wear out. A higher number means a longer lifespan. We used the 205/55R16 size for this experiment.
The Driveguard Plus has 7/32 inches of wear before it reaches 2/32 inches. This means that you can expect 1/32 inch of wear to happen about every 9,300 miles.
Sport and summer tires wear much faster, as the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 illustrates. With a warranty of 20,000 miles, a UTQG of 220, and a tread depth of 9.5/32 inches, you would drive only about 2,666 miles per 1/32 inch of wear.
What about winter tires? The Michelin – X-Ice Snow has a warranty of 40,000 miles and a tread depth of 10.5/32 inches, which means it has 8.5/32 inches of usable tread depth. (Winter tires don’t need to have a UTQG rating.) This means that the X-Ice Snow wears down 1/32 inch every 4,700 miles.
Finally, for a sample of what you can expect with an all-weather tire, we’re using Bridgestone’s Weatherpeak. With a UTQG of 700, a warranty of 70,000 miles, and a tread depth of 10/32,” you can expect 8,750 miles per 1/32 inch of tread depth.
How much tread wear per 1,000 miles?
One thousand miles is equivalent to driving from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., or from Orlando, Fla. to Philadelphia, but according to the numbers we’ve crunched above, you won’t see a 1/32 inch of tread wear by going 1,000 miles.
Even with the stickiest tire, the Michelin Pilot Sport 4, you’ll wear down your tires less than 1/64 inch. More durable tires will wear down much less than this.
Xuyun Zeng is a content strategist with a wide-ranging content background including tech, journalism, cars and health care. After graduating with highest honors in journalism, Xuyun led a newspaper to win eight awards, helped start an award-winning film industry podcast and has written over a hundred articles about cars repair, state laws and insurance. Prior to joining Jerry, Xuyun worked as a freelance SEO consultant with a mission to create the best content that will help readers and grow organic traffic.
Alice Holbrook is an editor with more than a decade of experience covering personal finance, including car insurance. She\’s passionate about creating easy-to-understand content that demystifies intimidating topics for readers. Previously, she worked for NerdWallet, and her work has been featured by Newsweek, The Washington Post and the Associated Press, among others.
