Will having two different tire treads do anything to my car?

I know...but the professionals say that even if the car understeers, you can rectify that by slowing down. If you have bad tires on the back, and the car starts oversteering, the average driver in a FWD is pretty much screwed.
TireRack.com
If the front tires have significantly less tread depth than the rear tires, the front tires will begin to hydroplane and lose traction on wet roads before the rear tires. While this will cause the vehicle to understeer (the vehicle wants to continue driving straight ahead), understeer is relatively easy to control because releasing the gas pedal will slow the vehicle and help the driver maintain control.

However, if the front tires have significantly more tread depth than the rear tires, the rear tires will begin to hydroplane and lose traction on wet roads before the fronts. This will cause the vehicle to oversteer (the vehicle will want to spin). Oversteer is far more difficult to control and in addition to the initial distress felt when the rear of the car starts sliding, quickly releasing the gas pedal in an attempt to slow down may actually make it more difficult for the driver to regain control, possibly causing a complete spinout.
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Yes, it does not say anything about dry conditions.

(Like I said earlier - I do not support this, I personally have the new tires on the front.)
 
This is a very general advice. In my car it would make more sense to put better tires on the front to decrease understeer (as it's naturally tendency is to push out as it is) and hydroplaning since AWD and ESP will manage traction all around so that the front tires will get more torque than rears and overall grip levels will be roughly the same.

On the subject, it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference what kind of rubber you are running at all if you are doing regular street driving. You can have all 4 tires be completely different and still not really have any problems. If you have less grip in the back than you are used to just stay off the throttle :p
 
LeVeL said:
Front tires are more important under braking because the front wheels are the ones that do most of the braking. Also, in any sort of emergency avoidance maneuver, you do not want a FWD car's tendency to understeer to be magnified by having shit tires in the front.
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Using the same rationale I could suggest putting better tyres on the rear. Braking unloads the rears, making the car unstable unless you are 100% dead straight - which you are not. If your rears are bad you'll spin round.

You can of course decide to disagree with my and any other expert's reasoning and prefer to suddenly spin round out of control :nod:
 
narf said:
Using the same rationale I could suggest putting better tyres on the rear. Braking unloads the rears, making the car unstable unless you are 100% dead straight - which you are not. If your rears are bad you'll spin round.

You can of course decide to disagree with my and any other expert's reasoning and prefer to suddenly spin round out of control :nod:
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I used to drive a Buick with used super shitty rear tires and nice fronts never suddenly spun out of control in any conditions (FWD car) and I don't exactly drive gently...

It's very general advice and doesn't take into account specific differences between cars and only seems to apply to hydroplaning.
 
They want good tires on the back because you (the consumer) are almost certainly not a good enough driver to handle sudden snap oversteer. You may be fine normally (no trouble for months), but one day you'll turn a little to fast at an intersection on a wet road and BAM, you spin into some old lady in her honda.


Professional drivers have been killed when they lost the rear of the car, what makes you think some guy in his merc is going to do any better? Understeer is safe and easy to fix with a weight shift to the front and a reduction in speed, both of which are most peoples natural reactions in a panic situation anyway.


Makes sense?
 
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prizrak said:
It's very general advice and doesn't take into account specific differences between cars and only seems to apply to hydroplaning.
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Every car that breaks traction in the rear under braking when not perfectly straight will have a tendency to spin around. Wet or dry or snow or ice or whatever.
 
Also different treads make distinct different noises when rolling down the road. 2 different types of treads could be like when you're sitting in the back of a rear-engined regional jet between the engines and one engine is spinning slightly faster than the other. The two slightly different sounds create an undesirable pulsating sound. One of my work vehicles does the same thing because of mix matched tires.
 
MattD1zzl3 said:
Professional drivers have been killed when they lost the rear of the car, what makes you think some guy in his merc is going to do any better? Understeer is safe and easy to fix with a weight shift to the front and a reduction in speed, both of which are most peoples natural reactions in a panic situation anyway.
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It has also been proven that if you crash straight ahead the car will absorb the energy better, compared to crashing into something sideways.
(Despite this, I'm still more scared of a head-on collision)
 
Ok, quick clarification!!! The older (but still very good) tyres are on the front to wear them out quicker so I can put the other 2 tyres of the newer brand on (got them as a deal of 4 tyres and the older tyres- which used to be my rear tyres were still great so I just kept them on the car). Mind you, given I'm hopefully getting a new car within a year, daresay I won't get the newer new tyres on my car, unless the car stays in the family! Either way works out fine for me- my sis (ok, my dad on behalf of my sis) will buy the 2 unused ones off me for her car if I don't need them for my car (she has the same tyres as my new ones except all round).

And honestly, only time understeer/oversteer would be an issue for me is during a downpour- I don't drive quickly enough to ever induce it through my driving alone!!! :lol:
 
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narf said:
Using the same rationale I could suggest putting better tyres on the rear. Braking unloads the rears, making the car unstable unless you are 100% dead straight - which you are not. If your rears are bad you'll spin round.

You can of course decide to disagree with my and any other expert's reasoning and prefer to suddenly spin round out of control :nod:
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If you are braking while turning, you are doing it wrong. I've only had the rear let go suddenly once - going through a downhill turn in the snow, and it basically straightened itself out. Unless you have slicks in the front and donuts in the back and you have really really soft suspension, you won't oversteer under braking under normal street driving conditions. People do, however, sometimes go into a turn too fast, such as when they miss their turn and still try to make it, in which case you'd want the better tires in the front so you don't plow into a tree.
 
They want good tires on the back because you (the consumer) are almost certainly not a good enough driver to handle sudden snap oversteer. You may be fine normally (no trouble for months), but one day you'll turn a little to fast at an intersection on a wet road and BAM, you spin into some old lady in her honda.
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I dare a say a year of driving through rain/dry/snow (very little) would be more than enough for that behavior to manifest itself if it were ever going to.
narf said:
Every car that breaks traction in the rear under braking when not perfectly straight will have a tendency to spin around. Wet or dry or snow or ice or whatever.
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Yes when I went 50mph into a downward hairpin on that car (shit tires all around btw) gave it full lock in the direction of the turn hit the brakes and countersteered it went completely sideways. Though it didn't spin out because I did it on purpose and had a fairly good idea of what I was doing.

Keep in mind that different vehicles will behave differently, that Buick had CATASTROPHIC understeer putting shit tires on the back (overinflated too) made that understeer really bad instead. It didn't even oversteer in the snow (assuming you weren't specifically trying to make it do so in which case it was about 50/50 that you would succeed).
If you are braking while turning, you are doing it wrong.
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Look up trail braking :p
 
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Until recently I had really old tyres on the back, and new ones in the front. It was fine in the dry, but the rear end broke loose one day right after it started drizzling when cornering left down an incline.

I caught the oversteer, but decided then to buy new tyres. What I did was move the new-ish (5000 miles on them) tyres to the back, and had the brand new ones put in the front. Not ideal from the avoiding oversteer point of view, but my rear tyres now have enough tread that I think it should be fine.
 
FATMOUSE said:
Until recently I had really old tyres on the back, and new ones in the front. It was fine in the dry, but the rear end broke loose one day right after it started drizzling when cornering left down an incline.
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This.
 
New tyres always to the back, enough said. Even in FWD.
Makes a world of difference in the wet. I've knocked my left headlight on to a guard rail cos the guy at the tyre shop and my dad insisted on new tyres on the front.

Tyre manufacturers like Michelin say so, so why go against them?

And here's a practical example.
[video=youtube;--Hb5kQCaTg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Hb5kQCaTg[/video]
 
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Isn't putting new tires on the rear of a FWD car only gonna help with fishtailing; while putting them on the front will help with the more important job of steering? Maybe putting them on the rear is better for wet conditions, but I think putting them on the front would be better for snow and ice.
 
Ilpav said:
Isn't putting new tires on the rear of a FWD car only gonna help with fishtailing; while putting them on the front will help with the more important job of steering? Maybe putting them on the rear is better for wet conditions, but I think putting them on the front would be better for snow and ice.
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No, period.
If you fishtail on reduced traction conditions, what do you think happens in VERY reduced conditions such as extremely slippery ice and snow??

If the answer is "I don't know", watch the video.

Moral of the story, put the deepest treaded tyres on the rear.
For ice and snow, if possible, mount winter tyres all around.

The logic behind this is simple. If you have the less grippy tyres on the front, you'll lose the front before you lose the rear. This is simply called understeer.
If you have the less grippy tyres on the back, you'll lose the back. Called oversteer.
While neither situation is advisable or safe, understeer is much easier to control for the average user than oversteer, because a simple release of the gas and stepping on the brakes will reduce speed and shift the weight of the car on to the front more, making it grip again. This is most people's instinctive reaction so it's what's advisable.

If you've taken advanced driving classes and correcting oversteer comes as second nature to you then go ahead and ignore the tyre manufacturer's advises.
 
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