Can I replace one tyre?

toasterman

I've got a standard front-wheel drive car, and one of the tyres at the back has developed a slow puncture or a valve problem or something.
I noticed it looked flat about a week ago, went to a petrol station and pumped it up (also checked the others - all fine). I had to select the 'flat tyre' option as it wouldn't pump up with the normal option.

It doesn't look too bad, but thought I'd check it again yesterday. When the pump started running it claimed it was 7 psi (the rest were all 30/2.1bar, the same as what I set the others to).

So today I phoned a couple of garages to enquire about replacing one tyre. They advised me that I should make sure the tyres on the same axles match, but that the front and back can be different.

The back tyres are currently by some brand I've never heard of called "Nankang", and neither of my usual places stock these, or have them available from their suppliers. The only places I can find online that sell the EXACT tyre I'd need to buy in order for it to match, have 1-1.5 week delivery times. I've driven on this poor tyre for long enough, and want it changed a bit more urgently than that.

So:

• Can I change one tyre for a different brand/tread type? It's on the back anyway, and surely back tyres on a front-wheel drive car don't do much anyway, do they? (Except for keeping the car level, and stopping the boot scraping along the ground, obviously).
• If I have to buy a matching pair, what do I do with the tyre on the other side, that doesn't need replacing? Is there anywhere that buys tyres? (Scrapyards? Are there dealers who sell reconditioned tyres?)

It seems a terrible waste (especially given the price of tyres) to dispose of a perfectly acceptable tyre, because its tread pattern happens to be different to the one on the other side. The spare in the boot (of yet another brand/style) is likely OK, as it has only been used for a couple of days the last time I had a puncture, before it was replaced. By pure bad luck, last puncture I had showed up a balancing/wearing problem that had killed the other front tyre as well, so I had a reason to replace both.

Thanks for your help. Bizarrely, I've never had this problem before, as the cars I've had before have always come to me with 4 matching tyres of brands that garages seem to have in stock, so I've kept them as such. This one was a mixture to start with.

pendulum

First try and get it repaired if it's got a slow puncture/valve issue, it may be repairable.
If not it's best to replace both rear tyres with decent matching ones as NANKANG are crap, budget tyres aka "ditchfinders".
However you do not need to have matching tyres on the back, if you wanted you could just replace one and leave the other, cars with different tread patterns on the back stick out a mile though but there's nothing illegal in it

bungle4by4

you can change just one tyre. personally i dont, but theres nothing wrong with it IMHO.

thefishdude

nankang are quite a well know brand, and it is true it is recommended to keep tyres teh same however its allaso recomended to keep them same and the tyre depht sameon each ie a new one will act slightly diff to and old tyre with less tread.

now there are 2 schools of thought as to what you can do. one group wil swear blid yo need to keep em matching and that anything is else is just putting your self an everyone that travels in your car at risk.

the other side have no problem with mis matched tyres especially on back and if you just drive normally like me and not on the limit then its ok. personally i recntly bought a second hand tyre for £15 fully fitted and no punctures gauranteed. it does me, came with 4-5mm of tread and is a mitchelin. i doubt many would agree with me its a wise purcahse thjough lol

vax2002

2 camps, one that thinks all other drivers are fools and drives everywhere on the limit of the car, yes they should have all tyres matching to spare us all.
The other that think they are not brilliant drivers so drive carefully and well within the limitations of the vehicle, they can manage perfectly well on odd tyres as long as they have tread.

Rikki

Is it an alloy wheel?

The reason I ask is the seal around the rim can go after awhile. (A problem I have.) They just take the tyre off and reseal it costs about a fiver.

Plus get it checked for a slow puncture and leaky valve before you look at replacing the tyre

toasterman

pendulum wrote: »

First try and get it repaired if it's got a slow puncture/valve issue, it may be repairable.
If not it's best to replace both rear tyres with decent matching ones as NANKANG are crap, budget tyres aka "ditchfinders".
However you do not need to have matching tyres on the back, if you wanted you could just replace one and leave the other, cars with different tread patterns on the back stick out a mile though but there's nothing illegal in it

Do garages do that? I've never had a repair offered as a service.
I've only had a slow puncture once before, and it was a company car, so company dealt with it (I think they just bought a new tyre).

I'd never heard of Nankang. But then I'd never heard of Roadstone either (what is currently on the front, a garage advised me it was the brand that some big national company use on their vans.... I forget who it was now.. might have been Autoglass), and they seem...OK?
Although my car is described as a "coupe", I don't race, I don't off-road, and it's mostly motorway and main A-roads I'll be driving.

I've been unemployed for a little while and I'm quite short of cash.
I need the car though, because I've managed to get a temporary job for the next 2 weeks, and it's an impossible public transport journey due to my start times and the office location. When that 2 weeks is up, it'll probably be sitting hardly used again for a few months, so I'm not even considering more expensive tyres than whatever is available at a 'budget' price (still £60 each, even then) at the moment, given I might have to sell it shortly unless I have a radical change of fortune, as I won't be able to afford the looming insurance renewal.

toasterman

Rikki wrote: »

Is it a alloy wheel?

The reason I ask is the seal around the rim can go after awhile. (A problem I have.) They just take the tyre off and reseal it costs about a fiver.

Plus get it checked for a slow puncture and leaky valve before you look at replacing the tyre

I'll definitely ask about this repair/resealing options.

Yes it's alloy wheels. The previous owner(s) didn't look after them particularly well, so I've only cleaned them about twice since I've owned the car, because clean - they look absolutely awful. There's irremovable black bits, plenty of scratches, and the odd dent.

If it needs replacement wheels as well, it might be cheaper to buy myself a different car. I bought an old Rover a few years ago for £500 that lasted me surprisingly well and was so basic, it was cheap to maintain as it had nothing to go wrong. Tyre tread was never a problem as you couldn't drive it hard (it struggled to keep at the motorway limit and had issues with some of Bristol's hills), insurance was dirt cheap (who wants to steal grandad's car?), and there's so many of them cluttering up scrapyards, spare parts were prices I'd never have believed (£10 for a new driver-side window, for example).

pendulum

Yes tyre repairs are common, I paid £8 to fix a nail in my tyre, not everything is repairable it depends where the damage is and what it is, but go to a tyre place that does repairs and see what they can do.

SG27

I've got two mismatched rear tyres on my summer set. One aurora? And one Firenza if I remember correctly. The garage didnt mention anything about it when i got the odd one fitted. It's been like the about a year and half now. I've not had any problems and didn't notice any difference.

Not sure what the official view is but from my experience it's no problem at all.

I wouldn't worry about using budget tyres either. Unless you have a performance car and are pushing it to the limit you won't have a problem.

mikey72

Nankang is possibly the best Taiwanese/chinese tyre manufacturer, so not a bad tyre, a top of the range budget tyre in fact.

What's the spare like?
Sometimes it's worth using that, and putting a cheaper tyre on as the spare, or even a part worn.