New boots required as the fronts are worn.

Best advice is to put new ones on the rear if there’s going to be a difference in grip level.  Rears are currently hovering around 5mm or just over.  So, in this case, it’s probably not going to make much difference right?

If I put the new ones on the front , by the time they are all worn out, I can change all 4 for a newer tyre model.

Swap them around if you’re that worried about it. Depending on your car, if it goes through front tyres quickly, they’ll soon all be equal anyway. I wouldn’t be losing any sleep over it with that amount on the rears.

We have a Mazda 3 that likes to eat front tyres (lucky to get 12k out of a set even though the car is only 150bhp and I drive like Miss Daisy). I always swap front to back (ie, new on front then, when they are about 50% worn, put them on the back and a new set on the front). Otherwise, as we do low mileage, the rear ones start to crack long before they are worn.

I have never, not once, had any issues with any perceived lack of grip.

I’d rather have the grippiest / freshest tyres on the front of a FWD car. The rear do hardly any of the braking steering work, so will last for ages.

Oddly ours needed rears (I replaced the fronts last year) this year, so I got them replaced and swapped the wheels with the new tyres to the front and moved the 1 yo tyres to the rear. Nice to finally get rid of the annoying slow puncture in one of the rears.

What they said, don’t see why you’d want nice fresh tyres on the rear, you’ll only end up with really worn front ones fairly quickly, and an even worse imbalance than you have now.

Every single tyre manufacturer and the AA, RAC etc all give the same advice. Best tyres on the rear.  That’s good enough for me.

@retro83 – yep, that’s the advice I usually listen to.

I guess, it’s the fact that the rears are currently still in pretty decent shape, so there isn’t really a discernible difference in choosing “best” in this case.

Odd innit.

Different views n’all.

I put new tyres on the front of the roadster (4wd) last time and this time changed all 4 at the same time.

So by my working out, if the fronts wear first then change them by the time the rears are worn too change the lot.

I’d think best tyres on the front on a FWD car. More grip for the driving and braking wheels.

if you just keep changing the fronts then it can get to the stage where the rears are perishing due to age. You will also have a much longer time with low tread depth on the rear as the wear period is stretched out.

Putting 2 new on the rear now and swapping does not stop you changing brand, it just means your OCD will suffer for a while until you can replace the next 2 and you risk not being able to get the same tyre…

On my FWD cars I have always rotated the tyres regularly to even out wear, I have to do this on the 4wd but on the rwd this is not an option as they are staggered (different tyre widths front and back). I would rather take the hit on 4 tyres in 1 go, especially as you can normally get a better discount.

5mm sounds like lots but it’s already almost 50% worn down to the limit (i would normally change at 2.5 to 2mm not  wait to 1.6)

Every single tyre manufacturer and the AA, RAC etc all give the same advice. Best tyres on the rear. That’s good enough for me.

Oversteer vs understeer.

Understeer is seen as safer.

The advice I get is to have 4 tyres the same all round

Don’t swap partially worn tyres to the rear on FWD – from safety perspective your rear grip should ideally be as good/ better than front (perhaps losing front grip is easier to deal with on FWD).

Just what I’ve been told – don’t know if its in any way specific to the car I drive.

PS the “handling” reasons for new on the rear is to avoid oversteer or the back losing grip during wet braking which the regular motorist is less likely to be able to catch and a lot more dangerous than good old understeer. While tread depth is normally put forward as the main reason it can also be new tyre developments and in choosing the best performing current tyre you can make it worse by keeping the old “rubbish” on the back. It is not uncommon to see fwd cars with rear tyres over 10 years old as they wont die but are all hard and perished and an older design.

That said it is easy to over think these things. I always put the best tyres I can on my cars and will take”perfectly good” budgets off a car I buy to put something decent on which might be OTT given how most other motorists view their tyres.

Best tyres on the rear is safest – if one end loses grip due to being the worst tyres you want it to keep you pointing the right way along the road.

That said, with 5mm on the rears I wouldn’t worry about putting new tyres on the front on anybody’s car, as long as they’re the same tyre. Be aware that it could mean that the rears could slip first in certain conditions where you really wouldn’t want them to though (deep standing water, snow).

Agree, best on the rear as losing control of the front is the lesser of two evils.

But since most cars have ESP now perhaps it isn’t as important as it once was.

I run cross-ply remoulds – different make on each corner! 🙂

I’d think best tyres on the front on a FWD car. More grip for the driving and braking wheels.

I’d always thought the same but the reason they should go on the back is the last thing you want is the front stopped with the back still moving.

Oversteer vs understeer.

Understeer is seen as safer.

Indeed. Lift off oversteer = “fun”

As others have said the best/most grip/newer tyres should always be on the rear of a fwd car, you can argue against this if you like but you are wrong.

Don’t swap partially worn tyres to the rear on FWD – from safety perspective your rear grip should ideally be as good/ better than front (perhaps losing front grip is easier to deal with on FWD).

I guess I can see the reasoning for this but in 34 years of driving I have never really had an issue where I have lost control of a car due to conditions (I have when I was driving in excess of the conditions) so unless you are driving like a knob I don’t see a significant risk in doing what I have done for the last few years (reason stated above).

But since most cars have ESP now perhaps it isn’t as important as it once was

Indeed, very much less of an issue these days. But tyre age is still one to be wary of and there was talk of introducing it as an MOT point as well as the condition.

Lots of “sample size of one” going on here.

That aside.

If the rears wear down at 1/4 the rate of the fronts, and you don’t rotate, even on a fresh set of tyres your fronts are only going to be better than the rears for about half the time anyway.

If you always rotate and put the new ones on the back, your fronts will start off pretty close to full tread depth anyway.

So why not take the advice. I’ve never been charged when I’ve asked a garage to rotate the tyres when they’re fitting new ones, it’s a minute job for them when the car is up on the lift.

” run cross-ply remoulds – different make on each corner! ”

Drum brakes and leaf springs all round as well? WW2 Jeep replica?

Best tyres on the front for me; they are the ones that hit that standing water first so they need deep grooves.

I’d think best tyres on the front on a FWD car. More grip for the driving and braking wheels.

Regardless of which wheels are driven and what’s happening when you are braking – all the wheels are doing the turning. The fronts get the majority of the wear on an FWD but it doesn’t mean they are providing all the grip when it matters. The reason the ‘official’ advice favours the better tyres on the rear is to do with the dynamics of all the tyres in the kind of turn and kind of speeds that can turn into an accidents. Favouring grip on the front makes those accidents more likely and bigger.

Based on actual testing rather than ‘I’d think”

But if you’re not planning on having an accident it’ll be fine 🙂

In the 10 years I had an Impreza I didn’t rotate the tyres once.  Maybe it is not as important in the southerly climes of this country but I never had any issue.

I think there maybe an element  of overthinking this conundrum, when an axle needs fresh boots they get them.

Best tyres on the rear is s that if you overcook a corner it will understeer not oversteer as understeer tends to lead to less nasty accidents.  But you will reach the limits earlier this way especially under braking.

With 5mm of tread left on the part worn tyres this won’t really matter – that advice is more for when the tyres are almost worn out.  In the OPs situation I would definitely put the worn tyres on the rear.

tjagain

Member
Best tyres on the rear is s that if you overcook a corner it will understeer not oversteer as understeer tends to lead to less nasty accidents. But you will reach the limits earlier this way especially under braking.

With 5mm of tread left on the part worn tyres this won’t really matter – that advice is more for when the tyres are almost worn out. In the OPs situation I would definitely put the worn tyres on the rear.

It’s not just that, aquaplaning will usually occur on the most worn tyres first because shallower grooves cannot clear as much water.

Less weight over the rear axle of a car will also contribute to loss of traction/more chance of aquaplaning on wet/greasy roads so best tyres should be on rear of fwd car, lift off oversteer is great fun to play around with/familiarise yourself with in a hot hatch when on a track but if it happens on a public road then you are pretty much **** as it happens in a split second.

Always newest tyres on the front for me.  They do the work on a FWD car.

Hedge your bets and plough your own furrow. Put a new one on the back and a new one on the opposite corner on the front Everyone’s a winner.

It is quite perplexing how many folks think they are right on this despite all the manufacturers and experts advice.

So could somebody post some <u>real </u>evidence for the “wrong” answer please ?

Best tyres on the rear is safest – if one end loses grip due to being the worst tyres you want it to keep you pointing the right way along the road.

Following on from this, it’s not about traction front and rear when pulling away furiously. New tyres go on the rear because when things go tits up or should that be sideways, it’s easier to control a front wheel skid than rear wheel.

Same with a blow out, on the motorway/ fast road most people will control a front blow out and pull over safely, most people won’t control a rear blow out, and end up in the barrier/ hedge

Always newest/best on front for me too (and decent on both ends). I totally understand the opposite position and especially why manufacturers and shops will stick to that advice since a rear end slide is more likely to be catastrophic. IF it happens.

But what it’s always meant for me on my cars and for my driving is, you’re trading safety in a rear wheel slide which essentially doesn’t happen, and losing safety in a front wheel slide/slide avoidance which actually is relatively likely.

That comes from a lot of things- shitness of the rear brakes in my cars definitely plays a part, and the general fact that with loading and workload and that, most situations that would cause the rear to slide can also cause the front to slide, and even with the better tyres, the front will go first so the situations where the rear can slide without the front sliding first are extremely rare (ice and snow, fundamentally, where your normal tyres suck regardless of which way round they are)

Ooooor, put it another way; in my 2 fwd cars I was always likely to go through the hedge forward. Improving rear wheel traction reduces the chance of going through the hedge backwards but improving front wheel transaction reduces the chance of going through the hedge full stop.

the-muffin-man wrote

I run cross-ply remoulds – different make on each corner! 🙂

radials near side and crossply off side here

But since most cars have ESP now perhaps it isn’t as important as it once was.

This is true, but if you were to do something totally irresponsible like going round a roundabout in a manner so as to deliberately provoke oversteer and not correct it until the ESP kicked in, you’d find that the car will be sliding a bit, which it has to or the ESP would be limiting your cornering ability, but that could still induce a bit of panic in more sensible drivers faced with an emergency situation.

So I guess what I’m saying is don’t rely on the ESP, it might not save you as much as you would perhaps think.

I did actually run a car with cross plys on the rear and radials on the front – but I was young and it was a relatively powerful rear wheel drive car and a long time ago , and i thought it was logical  – in the wet it was very exiting .

(Actually illegal and for reasons not entirely (pun  intended) similar to this thread)

But what it’s always meant for me on my cars and for my driving is, you’re trading safety in a rear wheel slide which essentially doesn’t happen, and losing safety in a front wheel slide/slide avoidance which actually is relatively likely.

Thats a very good point, maybe the manufacturers are covering their rears, ahem, legally rather than thinking about  what is most likely.

but since most cars have esp now…

wouldnt esp help more controlling a front skid/ slide rather than the sort of rear end sideways that would cause a massive problem?

It says in my car’s hand book something about esp not being able to change the laws of physics!

in my 2 fwd cars I was always likely to go through the hedge forward. Improving rear wheel traction reduces the chance of going through the hedge backwards but improving front wheel transaction reduces the chance of going through the hedge full stop.

This.

All modern fwd cars (and nearly all others) are designed to understeer fairly significantly when traction is exceeded. Making this worse is a poor idea in my opinion, but it does make such situations easier to deal with for inexperienced drivers.

I thought putting radial tyres on the front of a car which had cross ply tyres all round would be better/safer

because I was clever and there  was no internet then.

So – can somebody do the evidence thing , online video of the difference would be ideal.

I was advised a few year ago by a MIRA observer (was at a car show) that if you stick to quality branded tyres then you should be fine sticking new tyres on the front as long as the rears were less than half worn which is around 5mm (8mm-1.6mm = 6.4mm of legal tread usage. 1.6mm+3.2mm = 4.8mm).  Any higher a difference front-rear and the back can overcome the car’s natural understeer too easily for any ESP to save you.  Makes sense to me so I’ve stuck to it.  I change my tyres at 3mm anyway so more often than not it’s a full set off boots for every 2nd pair on the front.  That may make me drunk on the manfacturer’s Koolaid to make me buy more tyres but seeing as they are the only point of contact I have with the road I’ll happily spend a bit more on decent tyres and change them before they are close to the legal limit.  If it saves me from having even one small accident it’s worth it.