New tyres - front or rear?

bigjl

GolfBravo wrote: »

There are 2 very good reasons for keeping the better tyres on the back on a front wheel drive car: aquaplaning and lift off oversteer.

There are two good reasons to put the new tyres on the front, traction and braking.

This research is purely an attempt to be prevent poorly skilled drivers being caught out by the change in handling balance, specifically in the wet, mainly in fwd cars from memory.

A driver gets used to the front tyres level of grip in relation to the rears, this changes gradually as the fronts wear quicker than the rears.

When the front level of grip is increased by the fitment of new tyres the rears have less grip, particularly in the wet.

Personally i think it is highly unlikely to affect many drivers.

As it is extremely rare you could push a car that hard on the road.

Strider590

GolfBravo wrote: »

There are 2 very good reasons for keeping the better tyres on the back on a front wheel drive car: aquaplaning and lift off oversteer.

But this thinking is as old as "Golf are the most reliable car".

Most cars these days are setup in such a way that is impossible to get lift of oversteer.

martinthebandit

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Honestly, unless you're planning to treat the roads like a track day outing where you're hanging on the limit, just change the ones that are worn.

Is the right answer.

gilbert_and_sullivan

I rotate them so tyres get purchased in sets of 4.

If i had to buy 2 they would go on the drive axle, whichever end it happens to be at.

force_ten

it seems to be that they recommend new tyres on the rear, beacuse new tyres on the rear axle provide better driver control on wet roads

tyres with new tread on the front and well worn tyres with little tread on the rear means you can get lift-off over steer when going around corners this is made a lot worse in the wet

will the average school run driver or somebody Pootling along to the shops ever end up in the situation where they experience lift-off over steer?

probably not but it all depends on the type of driving that you do and where you spend most of your time

where i live we spend most of our time driving on single carriageway A roads at the national speed limit of 60mph with some very sharp bends that can catch you out, but if you are manly a town driver who dives around at 30mph most of the time i cant see it making much difference

I for one like to have really good tyres all round on my car, and will change a tyre at 3mm just to maintain the best possible grip on my car

two of my tyres are down to 4mm and i am looking for new tyres and where i can get the best price for my replacements

Ultrasonic

Tyre manufacturers all recommend that new tyres go on the rear on safety grounds, so this is what I do.

http://www.etyres.co.uk/flashmovies/new-tyres-rear-etyres.htm

A secondary advantage of always moving part worn tyres from the rear to the front and then fitting new tyres to the rear is that you don't end up with really old tyres on the rear, possibly needing to replaced on age rather than getting full use out of them.

agrinnall

Strider590 wrote: »

But this thinking is as old as "Golf are the most reliable car".

Most cars these days are setup in such a way that is impossible to get lift of oversteer.

I was going to ask if any cars built recently (last 10 years perhaps) suffer from lift off oversteer, it's not something I've experienced for a very long time.

I did come across the aftermath of it happening to a 205 GTi once, total carnage, police/fire/ambulance required, car looked like it would end up as scrap, although luckily the occupants didn't appear to have any serious injuries.

AdrianC

Let the car tell you. It will, you just need to listen to it.

If it's FWD and the front end wears tyres far more quickly, and you never ever get an inkling that the back end might be nearing the limit of grip, then put the better tyres on the front - where they're clearly being used harder (hence the wear), and where the majority of braking happens.

If it's RWD, they wear roughly evenly, or the back end ever feels like it's getting loose, then back.

If it's permanent 4wd, then you really want them all to be as even as possible to save wear on the centre diff.

The theory behind "new always on back" is a massive broad-brush over-simplification, and is basically due to one simple fact - understeer is easy for those with little clue of or care in vehicle dynamics to deal with than oversteer.

If you really don't understand any of that, then the "new on rear" advice is intended for you. Follow it.

Lum

If you're getting lift-off oversteer in an FWD car during day to day driving, even on crap tyres, then your driving style probably needs adjustment.

On an FWD car used in town, I'd rather have the most wet grip on the front of the car, where most of the braking happens, as situations where some muppet pulls/walks/rides in front of you are far more common than going around a corner so fast that two of the wheels break traction.

(As an aside, that one time work accidentally put good sporty non-eco tyres on the front of my Mondeo, while the rears had 2.2mm of eco tyre left did cause it to break traction at the back under normal-ish driving. It was the most fun I've ever had while driving that thing!)

gilbert_and_sullivan

AdrianC gets it.