New Tyres.

[8yearsnow]

Went to my local tyre place to get 2 new FRONT tyres and new valves on the back wheels.Was recommended budget ones as I don't do many miles.Had to explain I use all the 200 bhp so I wanted decent driven tyres.

      Then they started to fit the new tyres to the rear......I then had to point out I wanted new FRONT tyres but was told there experienced tyre fitters always fit new tyres to the back because of under/over steer.Rear end grip,Braking,Handling efficiency and a load of other absolute garbage.

Can see why single Woman hate going to garages etc.

[Mangoman]

They were quite correct - you always put the newer/better tyres on the rear, irrespective if drive wheels of not...

 

[8yearsnow]

So when I asked for new front tyres you think I really need new rear tyres ! 

[Mangoman]

Irrelevant.

Unless the front tyres were fitted within the last few weeks, new ones should always be fitted to the rear. 

They were actually doing you a favour - personally, considering your attitude, I wouldn't have bothered! Watch out for those ditches.....

[Laird_Scooby]

Given my recent experiences with a tyre fitting company i'd say buy yourself a compressor, tyre levers, a manual tyre changer and wheel balancer and learn how to do it yourself. Then buy the tyres supply only and save yourself a fortune as well as having them fitted where you want on the car!

[welland99]

On 26/11/2016 at 8:34 PM, 8yearsnow said:

So when I asked for new front tyres you think I really need new rear tyres ! 

I'm a bit confused.  Are you saying that they disposed of the front tyres, then proceeded to fit the wheels with new tyres on the rear, intending to move the old tyres on the rear wheels up to the front?

[welland99]

On 26/11/2016 at 11:29 PM, Laird_Scooby said:

Given my recent experiences with a tyre fitting company i'd say buy yourself a compressor, tyre levers, a manual tyre changer and wheel balancer and learn how to do it yourself. Then buy the tyres supply only and save yourself a fortune as well as having them fitted where you want on the car!

I wonder how cheaply this equipment can be bought, and how difficult it is to learn to use?

I have in the past bought tyres mail order, then rung aroung local tyre fitters to find the cheapest fitting service.  These days, it seems difficult to sve money doing it this way.  Where do you buy your tyres?

[Laird_Scooby]

26 minutes ago, welland99 said:

I'm a bit confused.  Are you saying that they disposed of the front tyres, then proceeded to fit the wheels with new tyres on the rear, intending to move the old tyres on the rear wheels up to the front?

The way i understood it, the tyre company fitted the new tyres to the rear wheels and ignored the fronts. That doesn't make much sense though so i'm guessing they fitted the rear wheels complete to the front and then the front wheels (with new tyres) on the back.

23 minutes ago, welland99 said:

I wonder how cheaply this equipment can be bought, and how difficult it is to learn to use?

I have in the past bought tyres mail order, then rung aroung local tyre fitters to find the cheapest fitting service.  These days, it seems difficult to sve money doing it this way.  Where do you buy your tyres?

Here's a few basics :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tyre-Changer-Wheel-Bead-Breaker-Mount-Car-Bike-Manual-Portable-Tire-Hand-Machine-/122059398201?hash=item1c6b4e9c39:g:o7sAAOSw5cNYEb0X

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wheel-Balancer-Portable-Accurate-Bulls-Eye-Car-Van-Bike-Wheels-/222223236791?hash=item33bd897eb7:g:vLgAAOSwdzVXtccO

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tyre-Bar-for-alloy-wheels-Car-Bike-4x4-centre-post-walk-around-tyre-changer-/222325610443?hash=item33c3a397cb:g:-RcAAOxy4t1SimiP

Tyre changer with bead breaker, manual/static wheel balancer and a tyre bar with protection for alloy wheels. After that you need tyre/bead paste (lubricates the tyre for removal and refitting, some new valves and a valve pulling tool to fit them and some wheel weights. Possibly a couple of bits i've missed but apart from a compressor and tyre inflator, that's about it. Compressors can be picked up brand new with a kit of tools (usually 5 piece) that includes a tyre inflator often for under £100 with special offers, here's one i picked from ebay :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/COBRA-50L-LITER-ELECTRIC-AIR-COMPRESSOR-9-6CFM-2-5HP-230V-115PSI-PORTABLE-/141895452581?var=&hash=item2109a0c7a5:m:mfCGSgpevt94xR6McDTB8bg

Here's a selection of tyre lube/paste and brushes. However don't bother buying a brush for a fiver, Wilkos sell a similar one for about 50p!!! Or you could use an old shaving brush..........

As for learning how to do it :

There's loads on youtube, i picked that one as it's "short and sweet" but shows the main points. Ideally you want the tyre changer bolted down on concrete but it does work elsewhere :

Mine is bolted to an arrangement of 3/4" MDF that is hinged so it folds up and slides under the workbench so it doesn't take space up when i'm not using it. I have the manual wheel balancer tucked under the bench as well.

That's the basics, all in about £250 worth for the compressor and machinery, tyre past etc. However once you've got it, then you don't have to get it again for a long time. As for tyres, ebay, Amazon, Black Circles etc - do a search online for tyres and you'll be surprised! To give you an idea, i bought some Falken Ziex ZE-914 from Amazon a couple of years back for £57 each. They were about £130 each fitted, valved, balanced etc at the nearest tyre place i found - buying the tyres and fitting them myself more or less paid for the machinery i bought to do the job. That said i had bought it all piecemeal so didn't have the full cost in one go. Next set of tyres were bought from (sadly now defunct) tyretraders.com and were Australian cheapies - well they were cheap here but down under they're not as they're a premium tyre. They were about £30 each delivered, best price i could get from a tyre fitting place at the time for a budget radial (not an el-cheapo Chinese ditchfinder but a reasonable budget tyre) was about £60 each.

 

 

[8yearsnow]

I'll keep an eye on them ditches.I never realised 6mm of rear tread was dangerous.Luckily enough I'm not planning any racing any time soon so hopefully I will keep on the road whilst driving to work and back.

      I have read all the tyre company's advice and I'm sure the owners of these company's and the shareholders and other "experts" would agree.Unfortunately I'm neither of these so I will make my own mind up.

[8yearsnow]

Yes Welland.Exactly what they wanted to do.Move the old tyres to the front and new ones at the back.

[Laird_Scooby]

14 minutes ago, 8yearsnow said:

I'll keep an eye on them ditches.I never realised 6mm of rear tread was dangerous.Luckily enough I'm not planning any racing any time soon so hopefully I will keep on the road whilst driving to work and back.

      I have read all the tyre company's advice and I'm sure the owners of these company's and the shareholders and other "experts" would agree.Unfortunately I'm neither of these so I will make my own mind up.

You still had 6mm of tread left on the rear tyres? New tyres are only 8mm and the minimum limit is 1.6mm. However i try to replace at 3mm or thereabouts and definitely at 2mm as under 3mm water dispersal is near enough non-existent and aqua-planing is a very real (and scary!) possibility.

[8yearsnow]

Yes Dave I have still got 6mm on the rear.I have being looking at my wear rates over the last 9 years of ownership and once they get to 4mm I will bin them all.I realise some members disagree with this view point but after going round the Nurburnring in anger and only getting passed twice I think I know a bit about accord v6's.Hitting 140 on the way home from work and testing the cruise control at 125 and not crashing in 9 years ownerships I reckon I know how the big Honda works.Perhaps some short term owners with pics with shades on know better.

[Laird_Scooby]

Having had a good think about this, i can only come up with one possible conclusion. It's a ploy to sell more tyres. Would you like to name and shame the tyre company that insisted on fitting the new tyres to the back? The wheels that really only exist on FWD cars to stop the ar5e end dragging on the ground that is.

Let me rephrase that - on a FWD car, the steering goes through the front wheels and so does the drive. Why on earth would any sane, right-thinking person want worn tyres on the front and new ones on the back? The back ones don't wear as quickly for one very simple reason - they do very little work!!!

On a RWD car, it's the other way round though. The better tyres should be fitted to the back end. Unless you get into a 4 wheel skid (in which case it won't matter how good your tyres are usually!) the most likely is a rear wheel skid which can be corrected easier with decent boots on the back as that's where the grip is needed, a bit of opposite lock and it should be back to normal. Again the opposite is true regarding tyre wear, the back ones wear quicker on rear wheel drive as that's where the power is.

As for 4WD/AWD vehicles, tyres should be replaced as a set of four to prevent transmission wind up which can cause some nasty adverse handling effects, even if only in 2WD.

If you drive your car fairly hard, which i'm assuming you do from the post above, then 4mm is a very sensible wear limit. Even at that age the rubber is starting to get older and harder and grip is reduced, despite the fact the water channels in the tread are still fairly capable of dispersing water to avoid aquaplaning. When i was a bit younger and drove my cars harder, i always used to go to a minimum of 4mm as well for that reason. However, overall tyre condition comes into play as well. For example on my Volvo, the tyres are mostly 5-6mm of tread but need replacing sometime soon. Why? Simple - they're old and have become hard and less grippy.

[Laird_Scooby]

Aldi have this compressor on offer at the moment :

https://www.aldi.co.uk/2-5hp-air-compressor/p/072538067789200

Same as the other one above but with different paint and branding. Still need to buy the air tools to go with it though but that isn't necessarily a bad thing

[Mazda Man]

I agree with you Dave.  One a front wheel drive car, where the drive and steering happens, then it makes absolute sense to make sure that the front tyres are the ones with all the grip and tread, surely?  The back tyres don't do anything except rotate.  Or is that being too simplistic?  If my rear tyres were low on thread, I'd move the front good ones to the rear and put the new ones on the front. 

[Laird_Scooby]

Exactly what most right thinking people would do Geoff - i'm sure it's a ploy to sell more tyres.

[Mazda Man]

Tis a cunning plan. That's why the tyres on the front wear quicker because they're doing all the work. Simples. 

[8yearsnow]

I'll condense my thoughts on this subject.The front wheels do the majority of braking.All of the steering and acceleration.Quite a lot off acceleration in my case.

[Mangoman]

Your arguments are all very good but actually help prove my point, and not only mine....

Your are quite correct the new tyres have better grip and overall performance which is exactly the point. And the point is simple really, forget all the technical jargon, because it's all about grip.

As you all point out having the new tyres on the Front give better grip - correct. Which is great if all you do is drive in straight lines - which of course we don't...

The point is, is that for control purposes in the event of a skid it is easier to control or to correct Understeer than Oversteer. Once a car starts to Oversteer for the average person it's usually all too late - you're a passenger until the ditch or lamp post. Whereas with Understeer you will feel through the Steering Wheel that something isn't quite right resulting in you naturally to slow down, which brings it all back. I bet a lot of you have experienced this without ending up in the ditch...  But I wonder if the same can be said when the rear is starting to overtake the front of the car...??? It usually happens very quickly even F1 drivers find it uncontrolable! 

And that is the whole point having newer tyres on the rear will greatly reduce the rear end wanting to overtake the front because the front will tend to lose traction first, which is easier to control.

And don't forget, all this will generally happen at speed in bad conditions.

And as for selling more tyres, you are only buying 2 tyres no matter where they are going.  

But of course ultimately it is your choice.

[hughezee]

Four new tyres rotated as necessary usually once to even out the wear and then four new tyres and cycle continues, none of my tyres ever get to the legal limit before I change them, so that works for me

[Laird_Scooby]

I see the logic in what you're saying Bill, i just don't agree with it. As long as you have grip on the front of a FWD car you can pull the back round to where it's going by using the loud pedal.

The other thing is it's more likely to lose the front end of a FWD car than the back end (except in an Austin Maxi) and as you rightly point out, if that happens and you let go of the loud pedal, grip is restored through weight transfer.

I think a lot of this is down to how, when, where and in what vehicle (RWD/FWD) someone learned to drive in as to whether they feel more comfortable with better tyres on the driven wheels or not.

As for my suggestion about selling more tyres, the psychology is simple. The old rear tyres go on the front and the new pair on the back in your scenario - the customer (aka victim of the tyre company) now has old tyres on the front so starts feeling uncomfortable about things. "We can do a discount if you buy all 4 tyres today sir/madam" - job done!

Also at one point in time when most cars were RWD, manufacturers stipulated in the service schedule that tyres should be rotated. This works fine for RWD but on FWD is in fact discouraged by most manufacturers so you don't end up with a situation where the previously worn tyres from the front that are now on the back suddenly find themselves on the front again.

Stu has literally just replied while i'm typing this and as he suggests, one rotation per set with tyres on a FWD car then 4 new ones at the appropriate time is about the best compromise /solution for a FWD car.

[Mangoman]

1 hour ago, hughezee said:

Four new tyres rotated as necessary usually once to even out the wear and then four new tyres and cycle continues, none of my tyres ever get to the legal limit before I change them, so that works for me

This is what I do also, just as long as the tyres are all equal to begin with. But I'm always amazed how many cars on the road have just about a different tyre on each corner! Crazy!

My point that I was trying to make is that I was taking into consideration that generally most people on the road today do not have a clue what to do if they lose it in a car - most just freeze. Hence my reasoning it is best to try and alleviate this before it happens. And modern cars just compound the situation - you are so insulated from what is happening!

Obviously you will get highly confident or trained drivers that know what to do in this event and feel that they can handle any situation that arises.

Go and watch Youtube of the videos of people at Nürburgring and see how many crash when the front end has got a bit loose compared to how many crash when the rear is lost.... When the back end has gone, it's gone! And some are only doing 40 or 50...

 

[Laird_Scooby]

I've never understood the different tyre at each corner approach either. I first noticed the huge difference it makes on a Volvo 740 many moons ago that had an assortment of tyre brands that would happily grace a myriad of while you wait type tyre places.

At the time, Fik-Wit were still supplying Corsa brand tyres which were in fact old-pattern Pirellis made by a subsidiary of Pirelli or another firm under licence from Pirelli, can't remember which though except Pirelli had their QC people in there a lot to ensure their name wasn't dragged down by dodgy tyres going out with their pattern on.

Anyhow, i digress - these tyres fitted my budget at the time and more importantly, my car as well. After a set of 4 were fitted, the car felt totally different - much more sure-footed, handled better - the list goes on.

Since then i've gone for the same brand all round, even if my budget has meant they're part worns at times.

[8yearsnow]

Well I have matched tyres in the Front and rear.Ditched a good Front tyre to get 2 new matched ones.Think the bloke driving the 3 series on the way to work was a bit upset he couldn't lose me.Should have got a bigger engine and hoped I don't drive my car like I stole it.I love this car as much as the day I picked it up.