There are several contributing factors that affect the life of your tires. While under ideal circumstances you should get 70-80,000 miles on your tires, tire type, driving style, maintenance, and driving conditions can force you to buy new tires much earlier than you anticipated. If you want to get the full life of your tires, there are a several things you can do to ease their wear. You can begin taking this into consideration when you first buy new tires. All-season tires have lasted consistently longer than performance tires because they are made of a harder rubber that is more resistant to stress and fatigue. Your driving style is the second biggest influence on the life of your tires and the one thing that you have the most control over. Aggressive driving --peeling out, slamming on the gas or the brakes, speeding--will take thousands of miles off of the life of your tires. If you want to make your tires last you can start by slowing down. The second aspect of prolonged tire life that you can control is proper tire maintenance. This includes always making sure your tires are properly inflated, not over or under. This will also help increase your gas mileage. It is also important to check your tires frequently for wear. Most tires come with wear marks between the tread. Once your tread is at or below the wear marks, it is time to replace your tires. Now for the factors that you don't have much control over; driving conditions. If you consistently drive on rough, unpaved roads or if you live an area that receives a lot of snow and, therefore, a lot of salt, it can take away from the life of your tires. Having safe, reliable tires is an important part of car ownership, but it is not cheap. If we do the best we can to maintain the tires that we have not only will we be safer, but also wallets will be grateful.