Be aware that some tyres are one direction only so you can't swap the wheels sideways …
Regarding the wear balancing, I'd recommend to replace one axle at a time: most of cars, and certainly the GPs', will have their front tyres worn first, when it's time replace the tyres and swap them with back ones: even on front wheel drive cars it is always better to have the better tyres at the back !!
BRs, Bernie
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Hmm, directional tyres? I think they have their place and that's for specialist applications like high performance vehicles. I don't like the restrictions they impose re positioning for use on everyday runaround vehicles and wouldn't buy one myself. The Fabia (elder boy's wife's car) needed tyres last week - it's a diesel and tends to knock it's front tyres out - so I told her to specifically decline directional offerings. She told me the fitter seemed impressed with her knowledge and agreed her choice. My perception is that quite a few of the cheaper budget tyres are directional. Could this be because they look "cool" and so look appealing to the impecunious "boy racer? On the other hand I quite like asymmetric tread patterns which, I think, can offer cornering advantages, especially in the wet, without the restrictions of a directional design.
You seem very knowledgeable about tyres BernieV and I completely agree with your point about fitment. It's best if you can replace tyres in pairs and always put the new tyres on the rear. I think this advice started when Cross Ply tyres were still the norm and Radials were just starting to be popular. If you compare a similar sized radial and cross ply the radial will "hang on" for considerably longer than the cross ply when pushed to the limit. So it became a legal requirement that radials and cross plys were not mixed on the same axle and then, although it was recommended not to mix them at all, if you had to then the radials be fitted to the rear axle. (We were taught the saying "Radials on the Rear") The thinking behind this is that with the better gripping tyres on the rear, if you enter a corner a bit too fast then, if your rear tyres grip better than the front your car will understeer as the front tyres loose grip and the car will start to run wide, out towards the kerb. Your instinctive reaction will be to come off the throttle and turn the steering wheel further into the corner. The engine is now slowing the car and the front tyres are scrubbing off speed so, unless you entered the corner at something approaching Warp Speed, the car will slow, the tyres will reengage with the road surface and all you need to do is wind off a bit of steering angle to regain full control. If you have the better gripping tyres on the front then the rear will let go first and you will have to apply a large steering movement, very quickly, in the opposite direction to try to stop the rear end stepping out and causing a spin. That bit isn't too difficult. The problem comes when (if you're lucky) the rear tyres start to grip the road again. You now need to apply a large steering movement, back through the straight ahead position, to the direction you were originally turning. The first time this happens to you I can virtually guarantee you will spin the car. The only way to learn this car control is to practice - and you can, there are skid pan courses all over the country who will teach you. (and believe me it's enormous fun to learn this life saving skill). I learned, in my Dad's fields, in an old 1935 Morris 8 back in the '50's. When it was wet I could do the best part of 3 complete 360's! and go round the whole field, when it was wet and slippery, with the tail hanging out at 45 degrees! (They call it "drifting" these days). Today we only have radials, which is probably a good thing, but the same rules of physics apply, namely understeer is MUCH, MUCH easier to control than oversteer! So, although I don't think it's a legal requirement because all commonly available tyres nowadays are radials, always put new tyres on the rear axle. (even if some well meaning laddie tells you to put them on the front so your steering and brakes work "better") Anyway, even though you are putting the more worn tyres on the front these tyres should still be legal and roadworthy and thus have good grip in their own right.
Whilst we're thinking about grip and how tyres behave. I like to always run the same tyres all round. If, for any reason, - sometimes a tyre will stop being available - I can't manage that I always try to run identical (Make, Version, Tread depth, etc) tyres on the same axle. My thinking here is that it minimises spyder gear wear in the diff if both wheels are doing the same rpm. It reduces the possibility of erroneous pressure monitoring DTC's being thrown. But most important it means that both tyres grip the road the same (given a good road surface) If you have different manufacturers products on the same axle you will have different tread patterns and differences in rubber compound which, particularly in the wet, will give the tyres different performance characteristics. These could become extreme when approaching the limit of adhesion. In simple terms one wheel might lock up and loose adhesion whilst the other one is still happily engaged with the road surface. Result? You could find yourself in a spin at just the moment when car control is critical to avoid a collision. ABS does go some way to mitigate this but overall performance will be compromised.
I could go on (worked with race tyres early on in my working life) but better stop. Need a cupa anyway and the V8 supercars are on Free sports!
All the best
Jock
