How long (many miles) should tires last on a Toyota Rav4? Could bad tires make my car shake? bad alignment?

Answer 1

Depends on the tire. The stock tires that came with the car should probably last 40-50k miles.

Bad alignment can cause the tires to wear unevenly and the car to pull to one side.

If your car is shaking, you may just need to have your tires balanced. It's fairly cheap, about $20/tire. Though something else could be wrong -- a bent rim, for example -- which would be much more expensive to repair.

Answer 2

Bad tires or unbalanced tires make your car shake more and more the faster you go. Alignment does not generally cause the shake. A tire can have a slipped belt or be "out of round" for one reason or another, even due to the orientation it was installed on the rim. The tire balance machine still shows a good balance, but the tire causes the shaking. It's hard getting good tire technicians sometimes because some of them simply mount the tires and balance the wheel but don't care whether the tire has a special problem or not. Toyota contracts to the best bidder and you may end up with any tire brand on a RAV4. The dealer may be the best place to really help you find the bad or unbalanced tires. If you have your tires rotated front to back and the shaking changes in one way or the other, you know it's a tire related problem. My advice when you buy new tires is to buy Michelin because I believe they require less wheel weights in general and have less incidence of belt separations etc. Of course if you hit a few curbs and potholes, any tire will give out sooner or later.

Answer 3

The OE tires on a RAV4 are either Bridgestone Dueler H/T's, some crappy Dunlop that I think was discontinued or a Yokohama Geolander HT. None of them is much good beyond 40k miles which is typical of OE tires.

A bad alignment can not make a car shake. A bad alignment can cause uneven tire wear that in turn can cause a car to shake though. At what speed do you feel this shaking? If it is highway speeds then it is a tire balance issue. If it is a low-speed shake then you could have a tire failure (ply-separation) in the making.

ASE Certified tire guy

Answer 4

Is the car shaking while you are driving or braking or both. If it is shaking while you are braking then its possible the rotors on your car have warped due to uneven heating and cooling during braking. If it is shaking while you are driving then its possible that the balance of the tires is off(a weight could have fallen off) or the belt in the tire is broken thus causing the tire to go out of round(check tires visually to see if there appears to be a knot on the tire). If its an older car you may want to have your shocks checked to make sure that they may not be contributing to your problems. The easiest way to check the alignment is to get up to highway speed and then release the steering wheel for a couple of seconds and see if the car pulls to either side. If so then you more than likely do have an alignment issue.

Answer 5

Used cars are typically sold "as is" which means that you take the car and any potential problems, necessary maintenance and repairs that are needed. It is your responsibility to maintain and repair it once you complete the purchase. Many careful buyers will have a used car inspected by their own mechanic before purchasing it. Other people will only buy new cars because they don't want to worry about things like this. There is probably some state law where you live that requires a dealer to only sell cars with a valid safety inspection. That means the car needs to have passed the inspection within the previous 12 months (or whatever the interval is in your area). The safety inspection includes a minimum tread depth requirement for tires. The tires might have been worn farther after the date of inspection, which is to be expected. If the car did not have a current safety inspection when you bought it, and there was insufficient tread depth, then you might have some recourse for the tires over the inspection issue.

Answer 6

usually i change my tires every 20,000 kms.

yup, bad tires always put you in danger.

i you feel your vehicle shake when you run about more than 80 kms/h then your tire should be subjected to a wheel balancing.

wheel alignment should be done if noticed your vehicle go to either other side of the road.

goodluck

Answer 7

tires could be the problem, if they are badly worn or if you see bulges on them, but alignment is more likely the problem. Tires should last anywhere from 40 to 60 thousand depending on the driving conditions.

Answer 8

You probably lost one of the wheel weights used to ballance your tires.
They're just hammered onto the wheel lip right next to the tire it's self and they often get bumped or rubbed off when parking next to a curb.

Have your wheels ballanced if you can afford it, or look at the wheel for evidence of one missing.