2 new tires: front or back?

[Devin]

My wife-to-be's tires were getting pretty bad, and one had a leak, so she brought them to Sam's Club to replace them (we have (had) a membership and it was on a Sunday), which they did. However, they put them on the back wheels. Now, in my head, the steering wheels and the drive wheels being up front would seem to be the logical place for them to go. Am I right, or are the low-waged Sam's Club stocker-turned tire experts right?

 

[ohioshodude]

to be safe, putting them on the rear will help keep the rear going the direction its supose to. having the rear tip out is not easy to recover from for those that lack exprience. i personally would put them on the drive wheels.

 

[PROPHET]

Driving with bald tires in the front or back is not safe as this is not the case i'd want the better of the two on the front.

 

[Shoaz]

The best tires should always be on the front, since braking and steering are critical for control and the front tires do most of both tasks.

Since Taurii are FWD it's doubly worthwhile to have them on the front. All the rears do is hold up the license plate.

 

[ohioshodude]

the front end is easier to catch in a slide then the rear end. i wish i could find that article from motortrend or car and driver, one of those. they did a review on what is the best set up and came up with putting the new tires on the rear, as the front will slide sooner then the rear and you can slow down and control the turn. if the tires are reversed the rear can come out in the center of the turn and be nearly uncorrectable.

 

[3.8Lwagon]

haveing the older tires in the front will wear them out quicker.

just use them up the next 10k or what ever (leaving them up front) and have them replaced as well.

 

[NotSoSlowSHO]

The best tires should always be on the front, since braking and steering are critical for control and the front tires do most of both tasks.

Ditto.

ALWAYS put the good tires on the front, if you have to use "bad" tires at all.

 

[yamahaSHO]

Your front tires will wear faster... Put them on the front

 

[Devin]

Wow, thanks for the info! I thought that the front would be the better choice. I think that the rear has less of a chance to go out anyway.

 

[SHOSIG]

Actually the best tires should go on the rear. Michelin did a video and showed why the best or "new" tires should go on the rear. Basically having the best tires on the front could provide a "false" sense of security while driving in bad weather and the rears could "slide" out from behind you. I also thought the best or "new" tires should go on the front, but after seeing the video and seeing some of the studies, I will recommend the best on the rear.

 

[NotSoSlowSHO]

Always the front.

I dont care about traction.

Think BLOWOUT.

Loosing a tire in an instant is bad enough, it would be nice to be able to turn.

 

[SHOSIG]

Always the front.

I dont care about traction.

Think BLOWOUT.

Loosing a tire in an instant is bad enough, it would be nice to be able to turn.

I guess if Blowout is the thought, then one should be thinking and should buy 4 tires instead of two.

 

[91 SHOplus]

I was always taught that the newer tires should be mounted on the drive wheels. In our case, the front.

 

[SHO92]

I'd put them on the rear. Bald tires on the rear and good tires up front will cause the car to oversteer, especially in the rain. For someone that has no experience with oversteer, and driving a FWD car, which unless properly setup cannot correct oversteer easily, it's just that much more dangerous.
Yes they will wear out faster on the front and you will get more traction while accelerating; you'll spin easier, and you won't know it's happening since bald tires ususally don't squeal as much as a tire with tread.
You can prove this point very easily by putting 2 donuts on the rear and going for a drive. It's extremely exaggerated, but it proves the point none the less.
Having bald tires up front might have more likely hood for a blowout, but you have a higher chance spinning in the rain then getting a blow out at speed.

I'd be interested to hear what a place like Tireracks opinion is, other then getting 2 more new tires, which is by far the best advice.

I've had wornout tires on the rear of my SHO. It wasn't fun and didn't last long.

 

[Shoaz]

Taurii, like most production sedans, come from the factory with lots of oversteer built in. IMHO, if you let your rear tires get so bad that you're in danger of oversteer on the street you're way past the point where you just need another new pair of tires.

And when you get them, put the NEW ones on the FRONT so that you can STEER and BRAKE. These, steering and braking, are things that you do all the time, and IMHO if you're going to get into trouble where you're gonna need to put the tires near their limit it'll be much more likely that it'll be needed on the front than on the back.

On a FWD car the fronts are going to wear much faster than the rears if the alignment is healthy. I check tread depth front and back periodically (especially just before and after track events), and always rotate the tires with the most tread to the front. Since I do a lot of track time I wind up moving the rears to the front a few times a year. This way I wind up with four tires that reach the end of their useful tread life at the same time. If you put the worst tires on the front you're killing your tire rotation opportunities and you'll eventually wind up with bald tires on the front and plenty of tread on the rear.

And I don't agree that oversteer is harder to correct on a FWD, I find it much easier. On a RWD car if you're hitting oversteer and correct with throttle, you have to be very delicate since the rears are already in the region of their traction limit and adding throttle only exacerbates the problem. On a FWD car, if the rear is starting to drift there's already more grip at the front than at the rear and throttle correction works wonderfully. Hammer it and it straightens out. In my experience you can recover much deeper in a drift with FWD than with RWD. If you're also turning into the drift that's all the better on a FWD, since now you're taking slip angle out of the front so that you can use more of the traction capability for thrust to put weight on the rear.

This is why Danny Sullivan says, "The way to race a front wheel drive car is flat-out."

IMHO, YMMV, etc., etc.

 

[ohioshodude]

I see your point, and I know both experiences personally. Let’s agree that if the rear end comes out with a regular driver its all over. LoL ..*see Firestone explorer roll-overs* I see in that situation that driving at 65 or so it could be somewhat hard to rain the car back in with only 3 tires but seriously can you not keep it upright!? Anywho I use to think as you do until I read that article. For me I would put them on the drive wheels as I’m sure I could get the car in the right direction if it got out of hand.

 

[SHO92]

Correcting oversteer in any car is not something most people will know how to correct, especially panicing in the midst of a spin. Manufactures seem to agree since they make 99% of production cars with a decent amount of understeer(Eric, I think thats what you meant).
That being the case, I'd rather have someone who doesn't know how to correct oversteer, have a car that understeers in an emergency situation. Since bald tires in the rear create more oversteer then normal, I feel its unsafe to have bald tires(an already dangerous situation) made that much worse by adding the extra element of oversteer/snap oversteer.
Eric, I know that you have track experience, but the average driver has no driver education beyond what they needed to get their license. For those drivers, understeer, especially in the rain and emergency situations is prefered. The original poster said it was for his fiance, who I assume to be one of said average driivers(I may be wrong though). For people with experience, I'd say it'd be more personal preference, I'd still tend to put the low tread up front. Driving on worn tires, you should know that the capabilities of the car are not as good as they should be and you should drive accordingly.
On this issue, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[SHOSIG]

From Michelin's website:

Where do I install new tires if I only buy two?
If you're replacing only two tires, be sure to have them installed on your vehicle's rear axle. New tires will provide better grip than your half-worn tires and when they are installed on the rear that helps reduce the potential for your vehicle to fishtail or hydroplane in wet conditions.

Hopefully this link works:
http://www.michelinman.com/images/care/rearmount.jpg

 

[Shoaz]

Let me make a quick clarification since I think there may still be some confusion regarding this topic.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my previous post, if your rear tires are so bald that you're in danger of experiencing oversteer on the street, by all means get enough tread on there that you're no longer in danger. It absolutely is dangerous to have bald tires on the rear in slick or wet conditions, and it is also dangerous to have bald tires on the front. You can decide for yourself which you think is worse given your own experience and environment. YMMV. The bottom line is don't drive on dangerous tires.

Tire companies are concerned as much with liability issues for technical advice as they are with their products, so sometimes you have to take what they say (or what any manufacturer says) for what it's worth. I find it a little odd how people pick and choose sometimes. Lots of folks here find it easy to ignore the "Premium Fuel Only" advice that Ford gives for SHOs on the dash, in the owner's manual, on the filler cap, and a host of other pertinent places. Very often manufacturer's advice is given to cover the limiting cases so that they minimize their liability from folks who don't know enough to understand the exceptions. If you know just a little bit more than the average danger-to-themself on the street, a lot more options open up to you.

 

[91 SHOplus]

.... The bottom line is don't drive on dangerous tires.

Tire companies are concerned as much with liability issues for technical advice as they are with their products, so sometimes you have to take what they say (or what any manufacturer says) for what it's worth. I find it a little odd how people pick and choose sometimes. Lots of folks here find it easy to ignore the "Premium Fuel Only" advice that Ford gives for SHOs on the dash, in the owner's manual, on the filler cap, and a host of other pertinent places. Very often manufacturer's advice is given to cover the limiting cases so that they minimize their liability from folks who don't know enough to understand the exceptions. If you know just a little bit more than the average danger-to-themself on the street, a lot more options open up to you.

SHOAZ has a very good point. There are plenty of people out there that neglect regular oil changes. How can these people be expected to rotate their tires properly? It's easy for these people to say "put the best ones on the drive wheels", completely forgeting about the older ones. That could create a dangerous problem.

OTOH, by putting the better tires in the rear, it forces tire rotation to the front for more even tread wear, protecting the manufacturer from law suits because of the owners error in leaving *old* tires on the car for too long.