Indentation, scratch and sliding tests were carried out in this paper to predict the critical loads and the failure modes of TiN-coated specimen. The test specimens were S20C steels with three different substrate hardness, roughness and coating thickness. The scratch test shows that the coating thickness has more dominant effect on the critical load of coated disk than the hardness and the roughness. Using the percent contact load, the ratio of sliding load to the critical scratch load, the cycles to failure are measured to predict the wear-life of TiN film. On the wear-life diagram the percent loads and the cycle to failure show the good linear relation on semi-log coordinate. With decreasing loads, the diagram shows the wear-limit at which the coated disk survives more than 4000 cycles.