Fitting new tyres... front or rear?

[Milkyway]

I always thought that the driven wheels should have the new tyres.,, some say the front, because of the steering.


https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/364252/half-dri...

Edited by Milkyway on Friday 6th September 13:02

[ARHarh]

If you drive normally, and your other tyres are legal, it won't make any difference. Controversial I know, but most people over think this sort of stuff, and no tyre fitter will ever offer to swap all your wheels around unless they are charging for it.

[Riley Blue]

Depends whether you want to oversteer or understeer into the scenery.

[MustangGT]

It is all to do with understeer or oversteer at the limit. Most people cope with understeer better because that is how nearly all cars are set up. Therefore new tyres always go on the rear where all 4 are the same size.

[vikingaero]

99% of the accidents I see are on a motorway where someone has ploughed into the back of another. So I prefer new on front for directional grip, braking and aquaplaning resistance. But that goes against the established advice.

There is a small part of me that thinks conspiracy theory to sell more tyres over the life of a vehicle (but not full on tin foil as I understand the issues with oversteer).

[CABC]

Rears are very important for stability, no matter what wheels driven. Try driving you fwd harshly in slippery conditions with rears much more worn than fronts.

[budgie smuggler]

New tyres on the rear for me.

Probably like most on here, I prefer a slightly 'pointy' car but I had aquaplaning on the rear axle once and it was bum-puckering to say the least. It went from driving completely normally to suddenly having the rears feel like they were on ice...None of the early warning you normally get prior to it letting go. It just went!


One of those times you drive the rest of the journey very very slowly with the radio off!

[SuperPav]

Riley Blue said:

Depends whether you want to oversteer or understeer into the scenery.

I know this is a bit tongue in cheek, but in the scenario of I have 4 bald tyres, where do I put new ones on, that is actually exactly correct!

As others have said, for stability, the advice is put them on the rear, regardless of driven wheels etc. Although ironically over the years of driving all sorts of cars in various guises of drivetrain and state of repair, the only offs I've ever had have all been through understeer! probably says more about me than anything else though.


In the real world however, we don't choose which 2 of 4 bald tyres to replace, but usually replace a pair of tyres when they wear down, in which case I'm of the (possibly incorrect) view that just replace the two that need replacing with new ones, whether they're front or rear. The other 2 should be fine, otherwise you'd be replacing them too!


I did used to rotate the tyres (well, the wheels) every time I switched from summers to winters on my VW T6 as fronts wore quicker than rears, to equalise wear. Obviously then you just need to replace 4 tyres in one go rather than 2 at a time...

[SkodaIan]

It also depends what you replace the tyres with. Putting brand new budget ditchfinders on the back and rotating the decent make part worn tyres to the front wouldn't be the best either.

For me, the main reason to rotate the rears to the front would be to wear those out before they get too old. The rear tyres on my old Octavia lasted about 60000 miles before the tread was worn out. Anyone on a fairly mileage is going to end up with more than 10 year old tyres at that wear rate.

[sortedcossie]

I used to fit tyres for a living, used to recommend on FWD cars that the new rubber went on the back. It's easier to correct understeer in a FWD than oversteer. We didn't charge for the swap round back then, and didn't enforce it - just recommended it.

[Mr E]

Putting them on the rear also moves older part worns onto the front.
Given I’ve bought cars and realised the rears were 10 years old, that’s probably not a bad thing.

[-Lummox-]

Interesting to see this whilst the guidance AFAIK is that if you drive a FWD car with a space saver wheel, the vehicle should have the space saver fitted to the rear, even if you get a puncture on the front wheel (i.e. take off the unpunctured rear wheel, fit the space saver there, and put the unpunctured rear wheel on the front to replace the punctured tyre).

If rear grip and stability is genuinely more important than front, shouldn't the space saver go on the front...?

Also as an aside, does this mean that the tyre experts think that your grippier tyres should always be on the back? If you have, say, 4 budget tyres on your FWD car when you get it, the fronts wear out, and you buy a pair of decent tyres to replace those - you should always fit those grippy new tyres on the back and keep the budgets on the front?

I suspect it's quite rare that people replace all 4 tyres at the same time, given that the driven wheels wear much faster, and I have found that many budget/midrange tyres can provide adequate grip on the non-driven wheels but perform poorly especially in the wet when used on the driven wheels. If I were in that position and replacing the worn-out fronts, there's no way on earth I would fit the new, better tyres to the back and rotate the worse tyres to the front. That would make the overall handling of the car worse.

[Olivergt]

Riley Blue said:

Depends whether you want to oversteer or understeer into the scenery.

If you are going in to the sceneray, then you are driving too fast for the conditions.

If you are regularly getting that close to the limits of your vehicle that fitting new tyres on the wrong axle could cause an accident, then you serioulsy need to give your head a wobble and maybe slow down a little.

[Riley Blue]

Olivergt said:

Riley Blue said:

Depends whether you want to oversteer or understeer into the scenery.

If you are going in to the sceneray, then you are driving too fast for the conditions.

If you are regularly getting that close to the limits of your vehicle that fitting new tyres on the wrong axle could cause an accident, then you serioulsy need to give your head a wobble and maybe slow down a little.

[kambites]

Rear. Not because you necessarily want more grip at the rear in normal driving, but because if one end is going to aquaplane and suddenly lose all of its grip, you really want it to be the front.

There's a reason that all of the tyres manufacturers say to put them on the back.

[MXRod]

vikingaero said:

99% of the accidents I see are on a motorway where someone has ploughed into the back of another. So I prefer new on front for directional grip, braking and aquaplaning resistance. But that goes against the established advice.

There is a small part of me that thinks conspiracy theory to sell more tyres over the life of a vehicle (but not full on tin foil as I understand the issues with oversteer).

THIS /\ /\


This takes me back to my early days of motoring. Most cars were supplied with, or had cross ply tyres , and if you wished to upgrade to radial (usually Michelin X) , it had to be a pair , on the same axle , and if only two , rear only .
Things have now moved on . But I still hold ( against advice) the view that the front tyres are the ones most vital to steering and braking , and so prefer newer tyres on the front , and have just done exactly that .

My s/h car came with 3 different makes of tyres 2 years ago , so I straight away had new on the front and odds on the back , last week the backs were ready for changing , so were replaced with the same brand/type as the fronts, and the wheels put on the front and the 30% worn front tyres put on the back . I would suggest the grip difference between the two pairs of tyres is so insignificant as to be of no consequence .

O yes , and was similar testing done on 4 wheel drive cars in the wet , also the cars used for this report , was the stability control left engaged .

[Puddenchucker]

kambites said:

Rear. Not because you necessarily want more grip at the rear in normal driving, but because if one end is going to aquaplane and suddenly lose all of its grip, you really want it to be the front.

Personally, in a FWD car, I'd rather have the grip at the front in an aquaplaning situation.
It's the front that does the steering, traction (in FWD) and most of the braking. If you've lost the front end due the aquaplaning you're basically a passenger until the tyres regain contact with the road or you crash. No?

[Lincsls1]

I prefer new quality tyres on the front. My local Kwik-Fit had no issue doing a front to rear swap for me when I replaced my rears last year. And didn't charge any extra.

[ScoobyChris]

Mr E said:

Putting them on the rear also moves older part worns onto the front.
Given I’ve bought cars and realised the rears were 10 years old, that’s probably not a bad thing.

Was surprised to see in the handbook for my previous BMW:

Swapping Wheels between axles
BMW advises against swapping wheels between the front and rear axles, even if all tyres have the same size, as this could impair driving characteristics.


Current BMW has a staggered setup for summer tyres so replacement tyres only fit on one axle anyway!

Chris

[kambites]

Puddenchucker said:

kambites said:

Rear. Not because you necessarily want more grip at the rear in normal driving, but because if one end is going to aquaplane and suddenly lose all of its grip, you really want it to be the front.

Personally, in a FWD car, I'd rather have the grip at the front in an aquaplaning situation.
It's the front that does the steering, traction (in FWD) and most of the braking. If you've lost the front end due the aquaplaning you're basically a passenger until the tyres regain contact with the road or you crash. No?

If the rears aquaplane under braking, the fronts will very quickly no longer be at the front.

It tends to happen in my Elise because the rears as so much wider than the fronts and the instant the rears lose grip you are a complete passenger until they touch the road again.