I recently drove with my wife down to Massachusettes and bought a 2004 Santa Fe. I was thrilled with the car until I got home and tried to get an inspection sticker. One tire had too much wear on the inside of the rear passenger tire. I had overlooked this at the car lot. 'No problem,' I thought, 'I'll buy a new tire.' Then I find out that with AWD vehicles you have to replace all four if you replace one. So here's the question:
The 2004 Santa Fe is a 4WD, not an AWD, right? Do I have to park my brand new fricken SUV (which I love, by the way) for the next three months until I can afford $500 in tires? Shall I start making plans for my wife to bring me to work in our Volvo before she goes to her own job? Or is the spare tire that came with the vehicle (a mismatched model, I may add) good enough to get us by? And if so, for how long? Thanks for the info, everyone.

-Josh

 

Regarding tire changes, page 2-19 of the owners manual is pretty clear.


[IMG]local://upfiles/4972/2467512955354B97965F038F844A9574.jpg[/IMG]

 

[align=left]Get out the credit card and bend over, big boy.

 

jsinton - jwhite1979 was asking for advise on how many tires he needed to buy for his full time 4WD Sante Fe. To be honest, I think this comment was unnecessary in the way it was presented. I don't think we should sugar coat our responses, but I don't think a person should be antagonized for simply asking a set of questions.

Ken

 

If the spare is the same exact size and tread type as the remaining tires on the vehicle, I would use it long enough to the inspection tag at the very least. Whether you continue to use the spare or put the balding tire back on the car after inspection is up to you. Tires with different levels of wear are going to put some added strain on the differentials and may confuse the ESC system. If there is considerable difference between the spare and the remaining tires, it might be best to drive the car with the ESC turned off.