Talk to me about tyres please

ChumLee

Stigy wrote: »

I've looked this up and it seems the general consensus is to have better tyres on the rear. This never used to be the advice, for the reasons I've mentioned in my last post. I appreciate that on faster roads in the wet the need for more rear end traction. Under normal driving conditions, front end traction on FWD cars is obviously better. In cases such as this where the lower tread is on 3mm, this isn't obviously the same as being on the 1.6mm limit, or even below, therefore having the 6mm ones on the front I'd say is better.

But define normal. On dry roads although illegal no tread is best. If it starts to rain the situation changes. You need tread, so it would still be best to have most water removed from the rear end. So the logic of best to back would still stand.

WellKnownSid

Stigy wrote: »

Yes you might have more back end stability at high speed

I did my 180 at about 30mph in the rain, in a 1.3 litre car, probably produced no more than about 50bhp due to its age. No-one is talking about high speed / pushed to the limit / racing conditions.

Just needs a dog or a child to step out in front of you on a typical wet morning...

jase1

WellKnownSid wrote: »

I did my 180 at about 30mph in the rain, in a 1.3 litre car, probably produced no more than about 50bhp due to its age. No-one is talking about high speed / pushed to the limit / racing conditions.

Just needs a dog or a child to step out in front of you on a typical wet morning...

With respect, for something like this to happen the car must have been faulty, or the tyres of very poor quality.

WellKnownSid

jase1 wrote: »

With respect, for something like this to happen the car must have been faulty, or the tyres of very poor quality.

You missed out the adverse camber, the quality of the road surface, the long spell of dry weather before which had left the road greasy and the 150kg of compost in the boot.

Yes, of course, a little extreme... but these ducks have a habit of lining up.

jase1

WellKnownSid wrote: »

You missed out the adverse camber, the quality of the road surface, the long spell of dry weather before which had left the road greasy and the 150kg of compost in the boot.

Yes, of course, a little extreme... but these ducks have a habit of lining up.

Yes, but with those ducks in place the tyres, and in particular whether the worn ones are front or back, are playing a rather minor role.

force_ten

from the AA

New tyres to the front or rear?

Check the handbook first as some give vehicle specific advice.

Generally it's good practice to fit the best/newest tyres on the rear – in wet conditions, this favours understeer rather than oversteer.

So if you have the front tyres renewed it's best to have the rear ones moved to the front and the new tyres fitted to the rear.

Tyres with deep tread are less likely to puncture and it's more difficult to control a car with a damaged rear tyre.

this has been standard advice for many years now

as for the OP, I personally like to change my tyres at 3mm and am very reluctant to run them lower than this, this is a personal choice and a tyre with 3 mm is nowhere near illegal, and many are happy to run tyres right down to the 1.6mm minimum tread depth

also many are happy to run their tyres from year to year without looking at the tread depth or checking the tyre pressures which to me is quite worrying

the garage were wrong to swap your good tyres to the front as that is against the advice normally given

I would say if you can afford to do it and are happy with the performance of your current tyres then stick with the same make and model to keep a full matched set

FreddieFrugal

OP is it 14, 15 or 16 inch tyre rim sizes on your Note?

DD265

They are:
Contipremiumcontact
185/65 R 15 H

FreddieFrugal

DD265 wrote: »

They are:
Contipremiumcontact
185/65 R 15 H

Try Black Circles - you can order them fitted online, they deliver to a local fitter, you can choose which is nearest/preferred. Good value, cashback via Quidco too.

£62 per tyre including fitting for Continental Premium contacts

Or £50 for Toyo Proxes

Strider590

WellKnownSid wrote: »

Plenty have. I have.

IF the road conditions are bad. IF you're not paying attention. IF you're going a bit too fast for the conditions. IF you're suddenly facing something you weren't expecting. You MIGHT oversteer.
IF you oversteer and you're not competant, you MIGHT mess up the recovery. You MIGHT end up in a ditch.

Of course you'd have to be unlucky to have all your ducks in a row. But it can happen.

In my case, I happened to have half a dozen bags of compost in the boot at the time, and did a very neat 180 when I had to avoid a dog running out in front of me. The dog was fine.

Not sure about "might", most people wouldn't be able to recover from oversteer period. The natural reaction is to brake, which in oversteer would probably them facing the way they came.

To pull a FWD car out of oversteer, you literally have to PULL it out. I had this happen at 70mph, it was the end of summer, the first real rain storm before winter, nearly time for new tyres, the rear tyres had about 2mm of tread. I hit a poorly drained section of road and the rear aquaplaned, I just kept it straight and held the throttle, I did of course slow down after that, but most people would have ended up in the armco.

It's why most cars understeer horribly and have a lot more negative camber at the rear than they have at the front....

Basically most people are nowhere near competent enough to handle a car at the limit and so manufacturers build their cars for the majority driver.