Replacement Tyres

I replaced Conti's in June 08 with Kumho KL51 103v. They have been excellent in wet and dry with no noticeable wear in 13000 miles. I tow caravan all year and have used car in deep snow / ice in Cotswolds over past week with no problem. Will be interested to see how long they do last as I got 28000 miles from Conti's which I know is exceptional.

Talking about the mileage you can expect out of the Conti tyres that come as standard on the S40, I'll add my two pence worth. I bought a 54 plate S40, first registed on 15th Sep 2004. with 57,762 on the clock at time of purchase on 9th Jan 2009 It's ex lease and as such I have the maintenance log for the vehicle since the date of registration. After covering 24,913 miles in the first 15 months it had a full set of Conti's fitted. After covering a further 20,953 miles in the following 25.5 months, it had two new Conti's fitted, I presume on the front. Two new Conti's were fitted 6.5 months later, again I pressume the rear ones, at a speedo reading of 52,147 meaning they had covered 27,234 in 32 months. I suppose there are a lot of hidden variables in those stats, driver style, tyre pressure maintenance, motorway/urban. But the most obvious one being the steering drive wheels verse static non drive wheels. Currently the mileage is 58,188 with the front tyres having done 12,322 miles over 12.5 months with 4mm of tread left And the rear tyres having done 6,041 miles over 6.75 months with 7mm of tread left Out of curiosity, anybody know the tread depth on new Conti's ? I used to put budget tyres on my old Focus, and to be honest it appeared to eat them [no stats] Mind you part of the problem was the fronts were out of track. And it took me to proffer the question of tracking to the mechanic who used to service car, before he corrected it. I never got to compare the mileage of budget tyres, with correct tracking, as the car was written off [ not tyre related]before it needed new tyres. On the above stats, with the Conti's returning what I consider to be decent mileage, I'll most likely stick with them. But those KUMHO tyres look a decent buy, do keep us informed.

The Continental cross contacts currently fitted to my xc90 are rated at 107V (18")so the Kumho replacements match this exactly. The tyres were out of stock so have taken a little longer to arrive. They arrived today however and I am now looking for someone to fit them. I drove up to scotland this weekend to take advantage of some of the perfect ski conditions with the recent snow. The xc90 peformed beautifully on several inches of heavy snow even with the worn contis up front.

In response to catch22 above, I think the reason for the premature wear like you suggest may well be due to tracking. The n/s tyre was worn excessively on the inside shoulder. I've had the tracking corrected by a volvo dealer in readiness for the new tyres.

Yes, like most folks had to replace the contis on my xc90 at just over 10k. R.