Noise when turning corners after new tyres fitted.

MinuteNoodles

neilmcl said:

Not weird at all, generally a good idea to have new tyres on the front of a FWD car. 

No, really it isn't because the rear tyres have to work harder to grip on corners due to not having the advantage of the weight of the engine. If you have worn tyres on the rear and good ones on the front you can find yourself suffering oversteer on a bend or roundabout, especially if you're driving a front wheel drive car and lift off the throttle mid bend and get lift off oversteer as even more of the weight from the rear transfers to the front.

Usually on a FWD car the rears wear much slower than the fronts so the correct course of action both from a safety point of view and to get the most mileage out of your tyres is to move the rear wheels to the front and have the new tyres on the rear.

DoaM

This is an age-old discussion.
I'm with the OP ... I prefer the better tyres on the front (of a FWD car). Conditions would need to be horrendous / driving style would need to be maniacal for oversteer to happen, even if the rear tyres are near legal minimum. In poor weather conditions I'd rather have the traction available to the driving wheels.

lesalanos

The tyre industry recommends that new tyres are fitted to the rear

DoaM

During the winter I'd rather get up that incline than be concerned about the rear end sliding out. 🙄

fred246

A few years ago it made national news that it was safer to have the best ones on the rear. I am pretty sure they said the car was less likely to spin under very heavy braking. The fitters insisted on putting new on the rear. Over the years they seem to have forgotten the policy. My theory is that it sometimes means a lot of extra work that customers won't pay extra for. I remember buying from blackcircles and the garage wanting extra money to move wheels around.

Mercdriver

fred246 said:

A few years ago it made national news that it was safer to have the best ones on the rear. I am pretty sure they said the car was less likely to spin under very heavy braking. The fitters insisted on putting new on the rear. Over the years they seem to have forgotten the policy. My theory is that it sometimes means a lot of extra work that customers won't pay extra for. I remember buying from blackcircles and the garage wanting extra money to move wheels around.

That may be because they make less money when a booking is via Blackcircles than direct.

AdrianC

The logic behind better tyres on the rear is that people are more likely to notice poor grip on the front through understeer (which is easier to correct) or through lack of FWD traction or braking grip. Oversteer through poor rear tyres will come as more of a surprise, and is harder for Joe Average to know what to do with.

But that's most likely to be an issue if there's a serious difference between the ends - borderline legal one end, good the other.

fred246

From Michelin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdSf0KJie_E
I was buying from Costco at the time. They HAD to put the new ones on the rear. I am not sure whether they would have sold them if you didn't agree. Incredibly persistent. Then over time everywhere seems to have forgotten.

DoaM

fred246 said:

From Michelin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdSf0KJie_E
I was buying from Costco at the time. They HAD to put the new ones on the rear. I am not sure whether they would have sold them if you didn't agree. Incredibly persistent. Then over time everywhere seems to have forgotten.

Excess speed for poor conditions, and also rear wheel drive cars used in the video. 🙄
(I know they mention FWD and AWD cars in the voice over at the end - I don't care, I disagree. My car, my choice).

Scrapit

I'd rather have tyres of comparable quality and grip than worry about where new tyres are. Costcos fitted my new tyres at the rear, seems OK but I cant think of many times in my decades of driving where I relied on tyres so much I thought " thank goodness I didn't have slightly more worn tyres there".