98 SLK 230 - poor tire wear

[kterry769]

Help, I'm new to owning an MB ('98 SLK 230), so I'm a little confused. I have put on about 25K miles since owning my car and the tires were new when I bought it. The front tires have severe wear in the center and slight wear on the outer edges. The rear tires are evenly worn. I took it in to have the tires rotated and the service center to look at them, and they said that I should never rotate my tires. This was a first for me, but it makes since since the rear tires are larger than the front.

Now it is time to buy all new tires. The service center said that I should always buy the tires recommended (205 55R16 91v and 225 50R16 92v2) and I usually do what they say (not much of an auto-phile), but after reading some of the posts, I'm questioning this.

I would like to switch to a tire that has a longer life and a little more traction on Oklahoma icy/wet winter roads.

Any recommendations/opinions?

[Lynn]

The very high performance tires used on the SLK don't last long. You have what is called a staggered tire setup. The rear tires are larger that the fronts. In this case they should not be rotated. You have 7" wide wheels in the front and 8" wide wheels in the rear, so you are stuck with buying different sized tires, unless you change wheels.

It sounds like you need some good all season tires. Tire Rack has a feature called Upgrade Garage which will help you select the tires you need. You can also compare them to each other and read reviews and sometimes tests of these tires.

Just go to www.tirerack.com and enter your year and make under shop for tires and go from there. You don't have to buy from them, but it will give you a good idea of what you need and some ideas of what is available.