(Before I get moaned at, I’m not worrying about this (circumstances dictate no choice), just intrigued.)

I suffered a tyre failure at the weekend – large pothole follow by roundabout therefore deflation and damaged sidewall (passenger rear). The new tyre’s gone on this morning but although the same make / class (toyo proxes TR) its a different tread pattern and of course has less wear than the other side (new tyre vs about 6mm).

So the STW opinion on mismatched tread/wear on the same axle is…….? 😀

FWD car? Be ok unless you drive like your pants are on fire, front wheels will do all the driving and most of the braking. 6mm is quite a lot of tread still, if you do notice a difference then when the 6mm one wears them out change them both.

Or if you have a full sized alloy spare then you could put that on the car if the tyres new?

front, four or rear wheel drive?

If it was me and the car was front wheel drive then I would just run with it. For the other drive types part of me thinks well, that is what the differential is there for however I am sure someone will explain why this is a bad idea.

Is this on your bmw?

I’d get it on a non-driven wheel.

wwaswas – Member
Is this on your bmw?

I’d get it on a non-driven wheel.

Yep. No choice – the F/R are different sizes and the fronts have Dunlops anyway. The diff’ll sort it, and the traction control everything else 🙂

Although I only do about 3000 miles a year most of which is motorway and I don’t drive like a nutter.

FWIW the old one is a TR1-r the new one a TR1 -S. Both have an AA grip rating the later has a slightly softer compound I guess as the wear rate is 240 vs 280. (Comes with a 20000 mile non-track guarantee though!).

Same situation last week, front spring went and trashed the tyre. Opted to change both even thou the other had about 4/5mm trad left.

I’d replace all four tyres to be absolutely safe. Nothing worse than driving a car with slightly mismatched tyres! It just feels SO wrong.

bigyinn – Member
I’d replace all four tyres to be absolutely safe. Nothing worse than driving a car with slightly mismatched tyres! It just feels SO wrong.

Feel free to get a quote for 2 x 255x18x45 and 2 x 225x18x35. And let me know if you still would. And before any one quotes the classic “expensive car so don’t moan at expensive parts – (which I’m not), the car was purchased before I had 2 kids and a mortgage and before the recenssion bit.

I’d love to trade it for a cheaper one if anyone wants it 🙂

Well kryton, its the only way you’re really going to feel comfortable isn’t it? 🙄

Its a tyre FFS, as long as its round, black and roughly the right size, it’ll be fine.
In an ideal world I’d have matching tyres on each axle at the very least. But you’ll be fine with similar tyres and slight differences in wear.
I had a car which had 4 different tyres and was not good in terms of handling. Changing to the same tyres for each axle made a significant difference in terms of feel and handling.

As I stated bigyinn, I wasn’t worried, just interested. 🙂

Kryton57 – Member
The diff’ll sort it, and the traction control everything else

The diff doesn’t normally have to work when you’re driving along in a straight line though. Not sure how much difference a mm will make in reality. Probably nothing but if your car has a LSD i wouldn’t risk it as it might wear internals.

Had a similar situation over Christmas – put 4 new tyres on, got an unrepairable puncture in one of the rears (RWD) and found they don’t make the same tyre any more so had to replace it with the nearest similar thing. I thought long and hard about replacing both rears and would have done if that didn’t mean throwing away a perfectly good new tyre. In the end I can’t say it’s made the slightest bit of difference to the handling of the car; not surprising given that it’s full of electronics that allow for the fact that the rear wheels may be on surfaces of different adhesion.

Comes with a 20000 mile non-track guarantee though!

really? think i might need some, i get 12k generally out of a set of tyres….

I thought long and hard about replacing both rears and would have done if that didn’t mean throwing away a perfectly good new tyre. In the end I can’t say it’s made the slightest bit of difference to the handling of the car; not surprising given that it’s full of electronics that allow for the fact that the rear wheels may be on surfaces of different adhesion.

exactly what went through my mind in 30secs in the tyre shop.

jam bo – Member

Comes with a 20000 mile non-track guarantee though!

really? think i might need some, i get 12k generally out of a set of tyres….

According to Toyo, backed up on thier website, yes. here

bigyinn – Member
I’d replace all four tyres to be absolutely safe. Nothing worse than driving a car with slightly mismatched tyres! It just feels SO wrong.

So what do you do in 10,000miles when the front’s worn down a bit and the rear’s still look new?

The diff will surely be designed to handle small differences in wheel size though – otherwise you’d need a new diff every time you lost air in one tyre. The lack of people complaining about having to replace diffs would suggest this isn’t an issue 🙂

I think that Toyo warranty is only valid in the States.

I’d be amazed if they issued a 20,000 mile warranty in the UK.

My brother uses Toyo’s (Proxes T1-R’s I think) on his Evo VIII, 6k out of a set is pushing it.

FWIW. I don’t see any issues with running a single slightly newer tyre. Its a pretty common scenario for dealing with damaged tyres.

Ideal world replace as a pair. Real world unless the car drives unbalanced just live with it until they both need doing.

Just be grateful you don’t drive a nice, shiny new 5 Series with the M Sport wizardry – the electronics would spend all day trying to work out why the rears are rotating at a different rate and messing with everything.

If your car has puncture warning it will pick up the difference in rotational speed and trigger a puncture warning so you’ll need to reset it.

Kryton57 – I had a similar issue last week; a puncture in an RFT that couldn’t be fixed with a minor repair.

Aside from spending several days trying to find a tyre supplier with the right size and rating to match the other side (255-25-18 Y) I’ve only replaced the punctured tyre, the other has 5 to 6mm remaining and at £230 ish a corner I’m not throwing away a perfectly good tyre.

I’ve driven around 400 miles already and not noticed any negative effects.

thisisnotaspoon – Member

bigyinn – Member
I’d replace all four tyres to be absolutely safe. Nothing worse than driving a car with slightly mismatched tyres! It just feels SO wrong.

So what do you do in 10,000miles when the front’s worn down a bit and the rear’s still look new?
I was being rather sarcastic. In an ideal world replace in axle sets.

I saw a thing in a magazine where they stuck tyres in a lathe and machined off some of the rubber- it was supposed to be a trackday performance thing I think but you could do the same to match new and old tyres I guess.

Seems like cobblers to me but maybe we should set up a garage specialising in tyre-lathing and nitrogen refills and make a fortune.