I have just been to have a puncture repaired and come away with 2 new tyres.
I asked them to be put the new on the front and old to rear, as I have been doing for years, the tyre bloke said "we encourage people to put new tyres on the rear!" Has anyone heared of this or was he just trying to sell me 4 tyres?
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I assume one tyre could not be repaired. So why did you have two new ones?
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Andrew the tyres had tread but were close to the wear bars (with in couple of mm). As winter is coming I reasoned the roads will not improve and having a puncture mended to purchase a new tyre in a couple of months seemed a false economy.
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I always replace tyres in pairs. And always put the new tyres on the front of the car.
It seems that anyone who is approaching the limits of adhesion whilst cornering is already driving too fast. Consequently whether a car under or over steers in these conditions is irrelevant unless you are some kind of loon.
The one time tyre grip is critical is during emergency braking where you need all the grip you can get. Hence the new tyres go on the front.
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It's tyre company policy, especially with front wheel drive cars. Apparently drivers cannot cope with oversteer on front drive cars with new front tyres but worn rears. Mike Brewer demonstrated this on Driven many months back with an old Nova on a skidpan. But what each driver does should depend on his or her preferences for (safe) understeer or (harder to control) oversteer.
HJ
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I agree with this in the wet, but surely if a tyre is worn, and the rubber has not perished at all, it will provide more grip in the dry as the tread will be stiffer and distort less when driving on the limit. In such a situation the opposite of the above would be true.
Ben
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This may apply on the track where the tarmac is perfectly smooth but real roads are full of joins and potholes and corrugations and all sorts of other horrors. In these conditions a newer tyre on which the rubber is still quite thick and soft (I always imaginned tyre rubber gets harder with age, does anyone know if this is true?) will hold grip better.
I have always though that cars with softer more compliant suspension have far more grip than cars with harder suspension (stand up Citroen). Simply because they are better able to cope with real roads. Anyone care to comment?
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On the average car, the spring rate of the tyre is about 10 times that of the suspension. Therefore your cars ability to handle joints and potholes will be influenced mostly by the spring rate of your suspension and the ability of it to retain correct camber and castor over the undulations. I think the road would have to be very poor, or the car to very stiff suspension, for the new tyre to have an advantage over the worn tyre in the dry.
Ben
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maybe like many car drivers, bruce either didn't know that he may of needed new tyres or doesn't look at them as part of a regular vehicle check round.
on the few shopping trips that I am forced on, it is quite common in town car parks to spot cars with tyres that are so worn or even out of shape that they are crying out to be awarded fixed penalty points.
maybe his puncture saved him from his allocation of points?, or even saved something more valuable?
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I get very annoyed at the number of vehicles that I see with faults: tyres, lights (particularly), broken bodywork, etc..
Either they are untaxed, uninsured, unregistered, etc. or else an awful lot of people only have a road-legal vehicle at MOT time.
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I worked at a place deep in the Valleys a few years back. A lot of the young lads working there had Vauxhalls - early Astras and Novas. Parts were swapped amoung the cars to get them through MOT. One guy had spent a fortune (relatively) on alloy wheels (S/H with bald tryes) - swapped with his mate for MOT and swapped back that afternoon. They were thinking of swapping excessively worn steering components......... but I think the boss gave a loan for the new bits in the end. At least they had an MOT covering the other bits I suppose. Actually they all took so much pride in their cars I'd never heard of one have an accident, they just didn't have the money to run them properly.
Piers
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I would always put new tyres on the front of a front wheel drive car.The tyres wont stay new for long even if your tracking is OK. They transmit all the drive and 70% of the braking so they wear out much faster.On my car I reckon the rears last at least five times longer than the front which means that on a low milage car they will perish before they wear out.
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Ben's right. In the dry, slicks grip better than treaded tyres, which explains why fastest lap times are always achieved in the dry on slicks. But Mike Brewer's demo on 'Driven' in the ancient Nova was in the wet. I remain open minded about this, but I have to put the NTDA and tyre makers point of view.
HJ
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