Tyre swap

JustinR1979

Ultrasonic wrote: »

I'm definitely of the better tyres on the rear persuasion, since this still seems to be the consensus view from tyre manufacturers and safety bodies. The basic argument is that if you have poorer grip at the front you can feel and react helpfully to this via the steering wheel, whereas if you lose grip at the rear you've properly lost control of the car by the time you realise and can do nothing about it.

The relevant question asked above but not yet answered is how much tread do the rear tyres currently have?

Yep best to rear
Understeer is safer than oversteer.
A front blowout is safer than a rear blowout.

Limey

DUTR wrote: »

I will have to re-check the tread of the rear, but it was more (all the tyres have been on since new <7k miles but over 12 months.

If all the tyres were put on at the same time then you will have deeper tread on the rear already, as the fronts will wear quicker than the rears on a fwd car.

Unless you enjoy doing handbrake turns on a regular basis.:rotfl:

tberry6686

I'm definitely of the better tyres on the rear persuasion, since this still seems to be the consensus view from tyre manufacturers and safety bodies. The basic argument is that if you have poorer grip at the front you can feel and react helpfully to this via the steering wheel, whereas if you lose grip at the rear you've properly lost control of the car by the time you realise and can do nothing about it.

Maybe I am being stupid but for a front wheel drive car this seems illogical.

If you lose control from the back end in a FWD car then you still have most of the braking ability, drive and steering ability to aid recovery if the front still has grip.

If on the other hand you lose the front end then it doesn't matter a jot whether you have any traction at the back. You will be completely out of control with little you can do to recover it. Bit different in RWD though.

JustinR1979

tberry6686 wrote: »

Maybe I am being stupid but for a front wheel drive car this seems illogical.

If you lose control from the back end in a FWD car then you still have most of the braking ability, drive and steering ability to aid recovery if the front still has grip.

If on the other hand you lose the front end then it doesn't matter a jot whether you have any traction at the back. You will be completely out of control with little you can do to recover it. Bit different in RWD though.

The driven wheels have no bearing on the fact that understeer is safer and more controllable than oversteer.
How are you going to be braking when the back end is overtaking the front?

DUTR

tberry6686 wrote: »

Maybe I am being stupid but for a front wheel drive car this seems illogical.

If you lose control from the back end in a FWD car then you still have most of the braking ability, drive and steering ability to aid recovery if the front still has grip.

If on the other hand you lose the front end then it doesn't matter a jot whether you have any traction at the back. You will be completely out of control with little you can do to recover it. Bit different in RWD though.

Not stupid, but unaware, in the programme I saw, they soaked a track and drove a car around it, with the weaker tread on the rear, the back end could lose traction.

Limey

JustinR1979 wrote: »

The driven wheels have no bearing on the fact that understeer is safer and more controllable than oversteer.
How are you going to be braking when the back end is overtaking the front?

What he said. When a car is understeering you can lift off the throttle or brake to regain traction, which is a natural reaction of most drivers in a situation where traction is lost.

In a situation when a car begins to oversteer lifting off or braking will only make the situation worse as this transfers the weight away from the wheels that are slipping, reducing grip even further.

tberry6686

I'm not saying that the advice is wrong, but it is odd. Why would losing traction on wheels that you have no direct way of controlling be worse than losing traction on the wheels that you have some ability to control ? It just appears to be counter intuitive to me. Doesn't really affect me anyway as both my cars are RWD but would like to understand the reasons behind it.

OddballJamie

Previously I was in the new on the rear camp.

However the last two years I've been rotating them along with the winter tyres, so they have pretty even tread all round. Although with my mileage it's more likely the tyres will crack than wear out so I'll need to replace them all at once at some point.

JustinR1979

tberry6686 wrote: »

I'm not saying that the advice is wrong, but it is odd. Why would losing traction on wheels that you have no direct way of controlling be worse than losing traction on the wheels that you have some ability to control ? It just appears to be counter intuitive to me. Doesn't really affect me anyway as both my cars are RWD but would like to understand the reasons behind it.

The fronts washing out a little is no big deal, you understeer a little and still kind of go where you want.
Rears wash out a bit, and before you know it you could be facing the wrong way having done a 180.
It shouldn't be hard to grasp this concept if you've driven a car




Edit: Here's a vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoi75nSiscE

Ultrasonic

There's another relevant video here:

http://www.etyres.co.uk/tyre-new-on-rear/