Unlucky me had a blow out on one of my tires that only have about 6k miles (out of 90k life) and the mechanic gave me the standard "it's AWD so you need to change all 4" disclaimer. After he measured he said that they were 12% gone but I didn't think to ask what that meant in terms of 32nds tread depth. I'm not sure how % is calculated... is 0% equal 0/32 tread depth or is 0% the state minimum 3/32"?
Doing my forum research there is a claim that Subaru says you are OK to replace just one tire as long as circumference is within 1/4" which translates to ~2/32" tread depth. I went to my owner's manual (2010 OB CVT) for confirmation but it says that they must match, with no tolerance specified (similar to this language on Subaru's website).
What I'm wondering is did Subaru drop the 1/4" circumference tolerance at some point? Perhaps due to design changes or overzealous lawyers? Or was this never an official policy?
My forum research can be summarized in two groups: those who had a menagerie of mismatched tires 300k miles with no problems against those who had one wheel drive through some latex paint causing slight diameter increase resulting in torque bind and transmission melt down within a mile.
Doing my forum research there is a claim that Subaru says you are OK to replace just one tire as long as circumference is within 1/4" which translates to ~2/32" tread depth. I went to my owner's manual (2010 OB CVT) for confirmation but it says that they must match, with no tolerance specified (similar to this language on Subaru's website).
What I'm wondering is did Subaru drop the 1/4" circumference tolerance at some point? Perhaps due to design changes or overzealous lawyers? Or was this never an official policy?
My forum research can be summarized in two groups: those who had a menagerie of mismatched tires 300k miles with no problems against those who had one wheel drive through some latex paint causing slight diameter increase resulting in torque bind and transmission melt down within a mile.