Strands #301 “Festival Of Lights...
Quizzes & Puzzles18 mins ago
New Tyres Needed
I will be needing two new front tyres shortly - I don't do a huge mileage neither do I take it on the motorway often. Any recomendations please? Thank you.
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Yes I read your post Baldric. I just happen to disagree with you!!!
You shouldn't swap side to side ONLY IF the tyres have a directional tread pattern by design. If they have, they will have a direction of rotation arrow on their side.
For NON-Directional treads, you you should ABSOLUTELY swap the sides the tyres are on, but not both pairs just one pair each time that you rotate your tyres is sufficient as I described in my previous comment.
It's about evening the wear out. Most front wheel drive cars in the UK will wear the front near side tyre more than the off-side, as torque is unevenly applied by the driveshafts under acceleration. Even the camber of the road (dip into the gutter on the curb-side) can cause particular tyre wear, as many cars are camber conscious (i.e. will naturally steer in toward the curb), so the driver steers away to counteract the force. Tyres will wear unevenly also because of people's cornering habits... particularly around traffic islands.
You shouldn't swap side to side ONLY IF the tyres have a directional tread pattern by design. If they have, they will have a direction of rotation arrow on their side.
For NON-Directional treads, you you should ABSOLUTELY swap the sides the tyres are on, but not both pairs just one pair each time that you rotate your tyres is sufficient as I described in my previous comment.
It's about evening the wear out. Most front wheel drive cars in the UK will wear the front near side tyre more than the off-side, as torque is unevenly applied by the driveshafts under acceleration. Even the camber of the road (dip into the gutter on the curb-side) can cause particular tyre wear, as many cars are camber conscious (i.e. will naturally steer in toward the curb), so the driver steers away to counteract the force. Tyres will wear unevenly also because of people's cornering habits... particularly around traffic islands.
I'm also happy to be proven wrong Baldric, to learn and expand my knowledge through constructive critique. So if you have any plausible scientific / mechanical reasoning as to why you should not swap tyres side to side, then please inform me. In the mean time, I've got a Toyota and a Ford on the drive, and both of their hand-books tell me to swap the tyres side to side as I described earlier.
regards
regards
Two of our cars are fitted with Directional High performance Tyres so it's end to end only, the third is a 4x4 on Mud and Snow tyres so they can go side to side.
See Directional Tyre Pattern here.
http://
I've used Blackcircles for years now and find they always come up with the best price. Their website displays a big variety of tyres with all the wear/economy etc ratings, everything from budget to premium rated. Tyres are bought through them and fitted by a local dealer, chosen by you from a wide range. I shall be buying tyres from them next week and have them fitted at ATS.
I read your reply when I got in last night baldric, but I couldn't be bothered to reply.
First you make a very definite statement about you should NEVER swap tyres side to side. When I stated in reply that this should only be the case if they have a directional tread, then you call me out for having not read your previous post, which had made no proviso about directional tread.
So I clarified, and asked you to provide compelling evidence for not swapping tyres side to side, and you reply by actually contradicting your own original advice.
Seeing as you clearly have very limited knowledge of what you are talking about, I will pay very limited attention to your posts.
I'm also not convinced from your latter post that you properly understand what Mud and Snow tyres actually are, or that even some 'off-road' tyres have directional patterns so should not be reversed.
First you make a very definite statement about you should NEVER swap tyres side to side. When I stated in reply that this should only be the case if they have a directional tread, then you call me out for having not read your previous post, which had made no proviso about directional tread.
So I clarified, and asked you to provide compelling evidence for not swapping tyres side to side, and you reply by actually contradicting your own original advice.
Seeing as you clearly have very limited knowledge of what you are talking about, I will pay very limited attention to your posts.
I'm also not convinced from your latter post that you properly understand what Mud and Snow tyres actually are, or that even some 'off-road' tyres have directional patterns so should not be reversed.
alavahalf: Maybe the majority of cars currently on the road have drum brakes on the rear, although there has been a general trend to move toward disk brakes on the rear.
The fact is that when you brake (when driving forwards that is), the car's center of gravity shifts forward. This places more weight onto the front tyres pushing them harder into the road, and transfers weight from the rear tyres. This means that if you applied equal braking forces to both front and rear wheels, the rear wheels would lock up and skid long before the fronts.
For this reason, your average modern car distributes as much as 80% of the braking force to the front wheels, and the remainder to the rear. Having drums on the rear is a very suitable solution to this problem.
You will see that larger cars tend to have disks on the rear more often than small cars. Even if a car does has disks on the rear, they will be of a smaller diameter than those on the front because they have to apply lesser braking force. On a medium to large family car, rear disks will likely be solid, with small pads compared to the front, and the front disks are likely to be ventilated to dispel heat more efficiently, with pads of a larger surface area.
The fact is that when you brake (when driving forwards that is), the car's center of gravity shifts forward. This places more weight onto the front tyres pushing them harder into the road, and transfers weight from the rear tyres. This means that if you applied equal braking forces to both front and rear wheels, the rear wheels would lock up and skid long before the fronts.
For this reason, your average modern car distributes as much as 80% of the braking force to the front wheels, and the remainder to the rear. Having drums on the rear is a very suitable solution to this problem.
You will see that larger cars tend to have disks on the rear more often than small cars. Even if a car does has disks on the rear, they will be of a smaller diameter than those on the front because they have to apply lesser braking force. On a medium to large family car, rear disks will likely be solid, with small pads compared to the front, and the front disks are likely to be ventilated to dispel heat more efficiently, with pads of a larger surface area.
That's ok for braking but what about accelerating with a rear wheel drive car? Surely you'd need the better tyres on the back in that case. I,also,think you might need to read up on brake force distribution systems:
https:/
https:/
Thanks Zac... most interesting read. In many ways it reinforces my information. The following statement in the Wiki is a little ambiguous in the way it is written: 'In SOME systems, EBD distributes more braking pressure at the rear brakes during initial brake application before the effects of weight transfer become apparent' ...it doesn't explain whether the initial force applied to the rears is greater than that to the front, or whether it is simply greater that it would normally be. It goes on to explain that the system is designed with a slightly greater rear-braking bias than it would normally have if there were no EBD... that makes perfect sense.
The fact remains that the center of gravity shifts forward during braking. So the vast majority of braking effort is applied to the front wheels. This is why front brakes are designed to apply more braking effort and therefore have to dissipate heat at a much greater rate.
I would argue that EBD is not that widespread across all of the cars on the road yet. would be interesting to know what percentage of new cars have it as standard. I guess all new cars have ABS now, some but not all will have electronic stability (i.e. anti-skid) controls, but would guess that fewer still have Electronic Brake Force distribution.
Before Electronic BD, many larger cars (mainly estates) adopted manual valves connected to the rear suspension beam, that would distribute more braking effort to the rear if the rear suspension was compressed due to carrying a heavy load in the boot or towing.
Yes I agree that under acceleration with a rear wheel drive car (IN THE WET) greater tread depth would probably benefit you more on the rear than on the front, but acceleration forces are an order of magnitude smaller than braking forces can be, so would argue that it is still better to have deeper treads on the front! I have owned a rear wheel drive MkII escort many many years ago (that was fun), and more recently a BMW, which was equally as much fun!
In the dry, a perfectly slick tyre has greater performance than an equivalent tyre with grooves in it.
The fact remains that the center of gravity shifts forward during braking. So the vast majority of braking effort is applied to the front wheels. This is why front brakes are designed to apply more braking effort and therefore have to dissipate heat at a much greater rate.
I would argue that EBD is not that widespread across all of the cars on the road yet. would be interesting to know what percentage of new cars have it as standard. I guess all new cars have ABS now, some but not all will have electronic stability (i.e. anti-skid) controls, but would guess that fewer still have Electronic Brake Force distribution.
Before Electronic BD, many larger cars (mainly estates) adopted manual valves connected to the rear suspension beam, that would distribute more braking effort to the rear if the rear suspension was compressed due to carrying a heavy load in the boot or towing.
Yes I agree that under acceleration with a rear wheel drive car (IN THE WET) greater tread depth would probably benefit you more on the rear than on the front, but acceleration forces are an order of magnitude smaller than braking forces can be, so would argue that it is still better to have deeper treads on the front! I have owned a rear wheel drive MkII escort many many years ago (that was fun), and more recently a BMW, which was equally as much fun!
In the dry, a perfectly slick tyre has greater performance than an equivalent tyre with grooves in it.
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