New Tires on Front vs Rear revisited?

I don't see how it changes anything.

The VSC system is an emergency system. In other words it becomes active when it senses a problem.

The goal in placing your tires is to avoid an emergency, or avoid VSC kicking in...not need it because the tires are bad.

If you have a vehicle with VSC, you have VSC whether the better tires are on the rear or the front. But you still want them placed in the manner that creates the best possible driving outcome. Even if VSC conceivably minimizes the chances of losing control of the vehicle.

Youtube Video

I would be interested if somebody would duplicate this test using a newer VSC set of vehicles. I would suspect the difference in performance might be far less. But since it seems like in most situations your rear tires are likely to fish tail first? I'd still take better grip in the rear, and count on either my ability to adjust the front wheels using the steering wheel whether aided by VSC or not.

I think a new test, would be interesting but in the meantime, I'm still putting the best two tires on the rear if faced with that choice.

 

Once you enter understeer (with those less than adequate tires positioned at the front) you can adjust the scrub angle of the front wheels with the steering wheel all you want but it will have limited or no effect on vehicle trajectory. Given the choice, you really don't want to bias towards understeer, and on a FWD vehicle you really want the better tires up front (if you have to make that choice), given those tires are applying vectored thrust, braking, and lateral forces that will get you in and out of under- and oversteer situations.

 

Well my youtube video doesn't seem to work.

But if you look up videos they seem to suggest the exact opposite.

On test track conditions vehicles were equipped with best tires on the rear, and best tires on the front. And the best stability was clearly with the best tires on the rear, as the opposite seemed to easily create a fish tail condition. That is once the rear starts to slide, it's very difficult to steer the vehicle even with new tires on the front.

But conversely, keeping the back stable, but having all the benefit of direct input to the front tires, seemed to keep the driver and vehicle in better synch with the net result being better control of the vehicle.

To be honest? I usually...almost always rotate my tires and replace 4 at a time. So it's really not usually an issue for me. (One Time I bought a Set of Two for my Old Accord...put them on the rear...) but mostly? I try to wear tires as evenly as possible, and replace the entire set of 4 when needed.

It was years ago, when I bought a set of two for my Accord. At the time I thought the best way was to put the new tires on the front. When I suggested this to the installer? He was the one that 1st told me about the new industry standard of recommending the rear tires be the best. He in fact near refused to install them otherwise.

I went home and did some research.

The overwhelming consensus and test track empirical evidence seems to suggest "rear should be best".

Given liability issues, Insurance Cost...and simply human morality, I have no reason to believe we are being mislead in this area.

It's really in nobody but the funeral industries best interest to create the less safe reality. Therefore, I'm believing what I'm seeing and hearing about putting the best tires on the rear.

 

Rotating tyres seems to be a peculiarly US obsession. In the UK, standard advice is now not to rotate them but to have the best on the rear. I can't see that rotation is helpful: if the fronts last 3x miles and the backs last 6x miles I still end up buying 12 tyres every 12x miles, either as 4x2 + 2x2 or as 3x4. Assuming the fronts don't actually wear precisely twice as fast as the backs, by always putting new tyres on the back (or front, if you think that is better), the tyres in that position should never get to the point where you think they need replacing; by contrast, there is a point with rotated tyres when all four are actually close to your safety limit, whatever you think that is.

Like the 5k recommended oil change (in Europe it is 10k), it seems designed to get you to the dealer frequently. Do US warranties require the servicing to be done by the main dealer? That was outlawed here ten years ago, it has to be done to manufacturer's specs and with their parts but not necessarily by them, I wondered if that had made it less attractive to them to demand a service every 5k miles.

On the other hand, I wonder whether our tyre fitters have their own ways of selling us things we don't need? They don't often seem to volunteer a puncture repair as opposed to a replacement, and they push tyre balancing and tracking checks pretty hard.

 

the rotation theory here is that tyres do not usually wear evenly. so if you don't rotate, they'll wear in one area while another area is still very good. rotation is supposed to alleviate this to some degree and garner more total miles out of 4 tyres. does it work? i expect you'll get answers on all three sides of the ledger.

 

A good number of years ago, I was taught that the front tires should be in the best condition. The reasoning was for safety. If there was a blowout, it was better for it to be on the rear, whereas with a front tire blowout, steering would be severely compromised.

 

Be my guest! No tears, though!

 

Yes, it works. All but high-end FWD suspension geometry creates large camber changes and scrub in bump, roll and steer, which combined with the multiple roles of FWD front tires, tends to eat them up long before the rears.

 

In foul road conditions, asymmetric tire traction requires greater driving skill, something the average American driver lacks.

That practice was outlawed in the US several generations ago.

 

In northern and temperate climates, sliding on snow and ice is far far more common than tire blowout. Especially in these days of vastly improved tires compared to a couple generations ago, and now TPMS.

 

That was probably fair logic back when Tires had a higher chance of suffering a blow out.

But I'm applying a few assumptions here. One being that we are talking about modern quality tires. Secondly, that when talking about replacing two of four, we aren't talking about the remaining "old" two being incredibly worn out. In other words, you are keeping the "old" two because they have decent life left in them. So even though the "best" might be in the back, the two older tires left in the front are not worn to the point of being dangerous.

If all 4 tires are that worn? Then you should be replacing all 4 tires. Replacing 2...and leaving two that are dangerous because of wear...is not wise.

 

Who charges $200 for a tire rotation? I'll either do it myself as part of normal maintenance or my mechanics will do it for me when they have the car on the rack for something else, no charge. I've been doing it this way forever and therefore my fwd cars always wear out the four tires at almost exactly the same rate.

VSC doesn't really change the equation because it can only help you when there is traction to be had. On slick snow or ice, it can only be of limited help. People seem to be obsessed with traction for getting moving when it's how the traction works for or against you under the dynamic conditions of motion that is really important from a safety standpoint. Oversteer is fun when it can be controlled, but the kind of oversteer you'll get from mismatched tires on a front wheel drive car isn't fun at all, it will sneak up on you and bite you when you least expect it.

 

The way I think of it is that I don't want dramatic traction differences between the front and the rear. In the normal course of rotating tires, you'll rarely be outside the range of 1-2/32" of difference front to rear which is perfectly acceptable. If I had a set that had a difference of 3-4/32" I'd err on the side of caution and place them on the rear.
Having experienced the sort of snap oversteer that this difference can cause, I'll take a few extra feet of braking traction any day compared to the possibility of suddenly facing the wrong way at 60mph.

 

Bingo