What reasons wouldn’t also reflect wear against the roads though? I think the idea is to impose a price based on wearing the roads, and a tire tax pretty elegantly approximates that I think

I'll give a fun one.

On a lot (really most) of 4WD/AWD drive vehicles, but especially those with 'full-time' (cries in Subaru), if you need to replace one tire 20k miles in (i.e. due to a road hazard etc) you then have to replace the entire set to avoid damaging the drivetrain.

I suppose in theory you could try to 'trust' shops to properly pro-rate such scenarios, however I'm skeptical that it could be implemented in a trustworthy way without being more trouble than it's worth.

> if you need to replace one tire 20k miles in (i.e. due to a road hazard etc) you then have to replace the entire set to avoid damaging the drivetrain

Re-sell them to other vehicle operators that don’t need to worry about that to utilize the remaining life? Would be easier if we had more 3 wheelers but at least 2 tires can be sold as a set. And not extremely difficult to match sets of 3 odds together with another 3 odds if you have some infrastructure to get some network effects.

Cuz i’m sure the shop is doing that.

why do people think this ? you just shave a new tire down to the diameter of the existing tires.

Because while this is 100% a thing and anyone who has taken a vehicle to the track knows this, Les Schwab or Discount Tire aren't doing this for you.

Yeah I'll admit I've never seen a shop I've gone to offer that as a service; the closest I've gotten is getting the shop's extended warranty on the tires, and then they'll pro-rate the remaining tires on replacement. Still had to pay labor tho.

What kind of tire shops should I look for? Smaller ones or specialty ones?

Independent tire shops without known brands and/or racing-oriented stores.

> What reasons wouldn’t also reflect wear against the roads though?

Off-road driving.

Put on your dyed tires for that. Don’t get caught driving on the road with them!

cheap tires wear faster than expensive ones in the same category tire. should people who can’t afford slow wearing tires or repaired/used tires be effectively charged more than someone who can afford top of the line?

additionally, most people have probably paid to replace tires worn due to imbalance or other issues. how would that be accounted for?

Gas tax also is not well calibrated to road wear.

Not necessarily, although one can argue that it's an attempt to deter gas guzzler vehicles.

And with my kind of luck, I replace about 2-3 tires in the life span of a set due to road hazards.