So I have a nail in my rear tire, and I happened to drive on a mildly flat tire for 8 miles. The tire shop says there is a "burn line" on the lateral wall of the tire, and that it may completely need replacement. They don't have a replacement tire in stock, and they say that if they remove the flat tire and upon inspection of the interior of the tire it needs to be replaced, they are not allowed to re-mount a tire that may be dangerous to drive on. Makes sense to me, except I don't know how there could be a "burn line" when I didn't even drive far enough (or fast enough - 20mph) to warm up the car.

Anyhoo, I asked them to order a replacement tire and check the interior when they have a replacement in stock. They then told me that the tires (which are 50% worn) all need to be replaced because the car is 4WD.

Obviously, if the current tire is safe to repair and drive on, easy fix and I go home with a patched tire. Can anyone confirm that all 4 tires need to be replaced because one of them is damaged?

 

I had an insurance claim for a damaged wheel/tire and the insurance company paid for all new tires. The repair company said that just one tire (around 30-40% worn) could not be replaced with only one new tire according to the car's specifications and the insurance company went with that. So maybe there's something to it.

 

For clarification, your vehicle is all wheel drive which is an entirely different system from four wheel drive. AWD means that each wheel is variably independent; on FWD, the wheels work in tandem. At any rate, 50% wear and a bad tire equates to replacing all of the tires on an AWD system.