My car will soon require two new tyres on the front.
Recommendations here say that the new tyres should be fitted to the rear?
How do you rotate the tyres if you havent got a spare (car never came with one - tirefit). Can you jack a car up at two points (so that two wheels off the ground) safely?
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Pete,
Often jacking up the front of the car on the official side jacking point (under the sill?) will also raise the rear of the car enough to let the tyre clear the ground. A couple of axle stands or other secure support might be adviseable before you remove the wheels.
Strange as it may seem, the experts do recommend having the best two tyres on the rear as you said. All to do with oversteer and understeer and I think the recommendation applies even with front wheel drive, though a few people argue against that.
One thing's for sure, the worn tyres should be kept on the same side of the car because they do wear 'uni-directionally', i.e. swapping diagonally will probably cause rapid wear for a start until they bed in again.
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Most of the major tyre manufacturers have very good websites. Most of these still recommend tyre rotation. They also recommend having the better tyres on the rear. It's to do with the rear being lighter than the front especially under braking and the higher risk of skidding and aquaplaning this brings - it's the same reason that ABS systems used to control the rear wheels together untill more sophisticated systems became available.
You should swop the tyres front to rear on the same side. No need to use the spare in the process.
I use a trolley jack under the centre of the car at both ends to lift two wheels at a time. Do support the car on axle stands - I've seen what happens to someone when a car falls on them and it's not pleasant.
But why get your hands dirty? If you're buying a new pair of tyres then the fitters should be willing to do the swop around for you whilst they've got the car in the air.
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Cyd,
It does make sense what you said about having the best tyres on the rear because back of the car is lighter during braking. I was thinking that lots of cars have a roughly 50/50 weight distribution, as mine has, but I didn't think about weight transference under braking.
However, I feel sure that tyre experts have said in the past that a car is more prone to oversteer if it has less tread on the rear tyres. I look forward to being corrected if I have this wrong.
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"However, I feel sure that tyre experts have said in the past that a car is more prone to oversteer if it has less tread on the rear tyres."
Correct.
I think the "novelty" is that the recommendation is now more widely undestood to be the same for FWD.
And what you do NOT want is the back end going on a FWD car.
What would Mr Average do with that?
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peteh,
you're quite corect. That's why it's recommended to have the better tyres on the rear - it makes the car less likely to oversteer and more likely to understeer, which is generally considered safer.
Power induced oversteer on a rear drive car is a different matter - the amount of oversteer can be controled with the throttle - not so on a front driver (well, not so readily).
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