Discussion
Sticks. said:
Ok possibly, but if I've made an emergency stop on the wet motorway, say from 70, if you're behind me with used fronts on, from the video you'll still be doing 40mph when you reach me.
Is it that simple though? How long do tyres remain brand new? If worn rears are fitted, how long before all 4 tyres are showing wear? Are two rotating tyres better than 4? Did the cars in the video have 2 new tyres or 4? Given the evidence of that film, should passenger-carrying 4x4s be legal? Etc.
Personally always put good tires on the front, they are the steering wheels and if they can grip then something can be done to control the car.
I understand the idea that many people crash as soon as over steer occurs.
However I also prefer good tires on the front for an emergency stop in the wet, front tires do the majority of the braking so it is helpful if they have the majority of the grip.
I understand the idea that many people crash as soon as over steer occurs.
However I also prefer good tires on the front for an emergency stop in the wet, front tires do the majority of the braking so it is helpful if they have the majority of the grip.
I actually have a story which backs up the statment of having grippier rear tyres in a FWD car.....yet I still disagree (on road cars anyway)
I compete a Peugeot 205 GTI. Last year, I put the more worn out front tyres on the rear, and the grippier rear tyres on the front....I was tying to get a few more miles out the tyres before the end of the season....
The Result:
Entering a corner at around 90mph on 3 wheels.....back end jumping out (oversteer in a FWD car...only in a 205GTI!)....me trying to correct...corrected it....but hit a mound and flipped the car in the air and landed on its wheels facing the other way!!
Why? Because the rear tyres could not cope with the speed I was driving....
However, apart from this I would always put new tyres on a FWD car when new as:
1. I was driving at the absolute limits where you would never drive on road, and possibly not even on a track day.....(fire proof overalls and all that LOL!!)
2. The competition tyres were subject to many heat cycles a road tyre would never encounter (making them hard)
3. A track is a staged environment - as a driver on a road you have much more serious things to contend with.....sitting water, mud on road, icy conditions, poor road surfaces etc....all this means that you need the wheels which do the most work to be in the best shape...
4. a FWD car is not designed to oversteer...yes if you have a very high speed "moment" it will (i,e very bad swerve on a motorway) ....but the advantages of having good tyres on the front will (probably) always outweigh the benefits of having them on the back.....
driversdomainuk said:
1. I was driving at the absolute limits where you would never drive on road, and possibly not even on a track day.....(fire proof overalls and all that LOL!!)
When I put worn tyres on the rear of my Golf GTi many moons ago, and was hooning round my favourite roundabout late one night, i doubt that in reality i was anywhere near the limits of the car, but by gum i exceeded the limits of the back tyres when the car just swapped ends on me without warning... 
heebeegeetee said:
driversdomainuk said:
1. I was driving at the absolute limits where you would never drive on road, and possibly not even on a track day.....(fire proof overalls and all that LOL!!)
When I put worn tyres on the rear of my Golf GTi many moons ago, and was hooning round my favourite roundabout late one night, i doubt that in reality i was anywhere near the limits of the car, but by gum i exceeded the limits of the back tyres when the car just swapped ends on me without warning... 
Could have been serious, lesson learned.I guess our experiences shape our opinions.
Sticks. said:
heebeegeetee said:
driversdomainuk said:
1. I was driving at the absolute limits where you would never drive on road, and possibly not even on a track day.....(fire proof overalls and all that LOL!!)
When I put worn tyres on the rear of my Golf GTi many moons ago, and was hooning round my favourite roundabout late one night, i doubt that in reality i was anywhere near the limits of the car, but by gum i exceeded the limits of the back tyres when the car just swapped ends on me without warning... Could have been serious, lesson learned.I guess our experiences shape our opinions.
that's actually true).You could have had your new front tyres on, you brake on a curve in the wet and your rear tyres haven't a hope of hanging on, and you hit the queue backwards.
That's why every single piece of official advice tells us to put new tyres on the back, but we're free to ignore all that advice if we think we know better.
Yep, but still there's the issue of shorter wet weather braking distance. I think it's unlikely you'd spin like that, and if you did, you'd not spin and continue in the same direction. But if the fronts lose grip when braking, yu just keep going in the direction of what you're trying to miss.
Sticks. said:
Yep, but still there's the issue of shorter wet weather braking distance. I think it's unlikely you'd spin like that, and if you did, you'd not spin and continue in the same direction. But if the fronts lose grip when braking, yu just keep going in the direction of what you're trying to miss.
But how long do you have shorter braking distances? How long do the tyres remain brand new? How long is it before you have 4 worn tyres? etc etc?I fitted new tyres on to the front of my car twice for the same reasons a s you mention, and i spun, twice. I now fit new tyres to the rear, but i still haven't run in to anything yet.
Ultimately you can choose braking distances and you can choose gaps to the car in front, but i had no choice when those rears let go on me. (Apart from the choice of driving sensibly, i guess
).But that time in the Golf, i was only doing what i'd done countless times before. I think there was diesel on the roundabout and i nearly landed on top of the car that had gone off before and which ended in a ditch.
heebeegeetee said:
Ultimately you can choose braking distances and you can choose gaps to the car in front, but i had no choice when those rears let go on me. (Apart from the choice of driving sensibly, i guess ).
Yes, usually, by driving sensibly, agreed. But when someone's stupid kid runs out or someone pulls out without looking? I guess my thinking is that, as you say, you can control the rear wheels more, by driving sensibly, but sometimes braking distance is controlled by someone else by their lack of care/awareness.).g2g
Sticks. said:
heebeegeetee said:
Ultimately you can choose braking distances and you can choose gaps to the car in front, but i had no choice when those rears let go on me. (Apart from the choice of driving sensibly, i guess ).
Yes, usually, by driving sensibly, agreed. But when someone's stupid kid runs out or someone pulls out without looking? I guess my thinking is that, as you say, you can control the rear wheels more, by driving sensibly, but sometimes braking distance is controlled by someone else by their lack of care/awareness.).g2g
However, i do like to pedal on as often as possible, so i guess it's fair to say that i have spent time cornering quickly infinitely more times than emergency stopping.
I can only reiterate that i always used to fit a pair of new tyres to the front for the very same reasons that you are saying now, exactly the same.
Indeed, after the first spin i still refused to countenance the idea that new tyres should be fitted to the rear, and so had to repeat the experience in a different hot hatch a couple of years later.
But I've never had a problem with understeer, or terminal understeer, or an inability to stop.
Fast forward a decade or so and we now have resources such as the internet, which wasn't available when i was mulling this problem out, and as i have shown, every single piece of advice from every single authority says without exception that new tyres should go on the back.
I've no doubt that authorities like Michelin have done every test available, and having weighed everything up have decided that overall it is best that new tyres go on the back.
That, coupled with my own experiences, is good enough for me. I mean, there is no way I could ever know more about tyres than Michelin so why would i ever want to question their advice?
heebeegeetee said:
I guess just going by my own circumstances, it's very rare indeed that i ever have to slam the brakes on, and tbh, i can't remember ever having to so in the rain, in over 30 years of driving.
However, i do like to pedal on as often as possible, so i guess it's fair to say that i have spent time cornering quickly infinitely more times than emergency stopping.
That's the difference for me. You control your cornering speed, but you can't control someone else's stupidity which requires an emergency stop. Why is an emergency stop part of the test? Because it happens.However, i do like to pedal on as often as possible, so i guess it's fair to say that i have spent time cornering quickly infinitely more times than emergency stopping.
From the Youtube link I posted earlier if I stop in the wet from 70 with my good tires, you'll still be doing 40 when you go into me on medium-worn ones. Not good. (Winter's approaching so there'll soon be a M way pile up to demsonstrate this.) But if you have to brake at 30 in the wet you'll still be moving when you reach granny/kid crossing the road when you might not have been.
I appreciate the current thinking is about handling etc, but I'm surprised, with a similar 30 years behind me I've never exerienced it.
Years ago I was in a bad accident. Tyre tread depth was loked at by the insurance company to see if they could reduce their liability on the grounds that more tread = shorter stopping distance = less impact speed = lesser injuries. Ie if your tyres had been better you'd not have got so badly hurt so why should we pay? For me it wasn't an issue.
Sorry, this sounds a bit bullish, not meant to, I'm grateful for your input but suspect we'll have to agree to differ. Food for thought though
Sticks. said:
From the Youtube link I posted earlier if I stop in the wet from 70 with my good tires, you'll still be doing 40 when you go into me on medium-worn ones.
Provided that the need to stop happens shortly after you've fitted your new tyres. If however the emergency happens when your new tyres are half way through their life or whatever...As I say, i've managed for over 30 years without getting into such an emergency, and so have the vast majority of people out there too. I reckon if the need to stop was so vital we'd have the same tyre laws as Germany, yet we have far from the tyre laws of Germany AND a lower level of casualties, which shows that trying to determine a safe course of action is far from straight forward. Indeed most people don't know how to emergency stop (and how often do we get to practice it) and crash investigators often find that because the vehicle is not stopping as required by the driver, the driver often thinks the brakes aren't working and actually reduce the pressure on the brake pedal. This is why the emergency brake-assist systems have been developed.
And of course, that clip doesn't address the question of steering around an obstacle. I've found that when i have locked up the front tyres, simply coming off the brake reinstates the ability to steer. And, when was the last time you needed to do a full-on, life-saving emergency-complete-stop? Me, in over 30 years of over 50k miles a year? Once, in the dry.
The chances of you needing a life saving stop occurring in the wet when your tyres are brand new are so remote that it's not worth worrying about, so i think it's best to follow official advice and be done with.
Michelin will have all the emergency stopping figures under the sun i imagine, in every different type of vehicle and road condition and weather condition and absolutely everything, and they still tell us to put new tyres on the back. I for one am not going to overide that degree of knowledge based on one youtube clip of film.
heebeegeetee said:
1.The chances of you needing a life saving stop occurring in the wet when your tyres are brand new are so remote that it's not worth worrying about, so i think it's best to follow official advice and be done with.
2.Michelin will have all the emergency stopping figures under the sun i imagine, in every different type of vehicle and road condition and weather condition and absolutely everything, and they still tell us to put new tyres on the back. I for one am not going to overide that degree of knowledge based on one youtube clip of film.
(my numbers)2.Michelin will have all the emergency stopping figures under the sun i imagine, in every different type of vehicle and road condition and weather condition and absolutely everything, and they still tell us to put new tyres on the back. I for one am not going to overide that degree of knowledge based on one youtube clip of film.
1. It's more outcome than just probability.
2. They did - see para on driving on wet roads
'On a wet road stopping distances increase, and this is even more the case with worn tyres. '
http://www.michelin.co.uk/connected/tyres/learn-sh...
They seem quite taken with the idea http://join-the-fight.michelin.co.uk/#/home
Goodyear even designed a tyre spcifically with this in mind. http://eu.goodyear.com/uk_en/tires/repository/opti...
Bridgestone....... http://www.bridgestone.co.uk/press/press-releases/...
Rospa thought braking distance was important enough to test it http://www.rospa.com/RoadSafety/info/tyre_tread_de...
I could go on but I don't think we're likely to agree
Sticks. said:
heebeegeetee said:
1.The chances of you needing a life saving stop occurring in the wet when your tyres are brand new are so remote that it's not worth worrying about, so i think it's best to follow official advice and be done with.
2.Michelin will have all the emergency stopping figures under the sun i imagine, in every different type of vehicle and road condition and weather condition and absolutely everything, and they still tell us to put new tyres on the back. I for one am not going to overide that degree of knowledge based on one youtube clip of film.
(my numbers)2.Michelin will have all the emergency stopping figures under the sun i imagine, in every different type of vehicle and road condition and weather condition and absolutely everything, and they still tell us to put new tyres on the back. I for one am not going to overide that degree of knowledge based on one youtube clip of film.
1. It's more outcome than just probability.
2. They did - see para on driving on wet roads
'On a wet road stopping distances increase, and this is even more the case with worn tyres. '
http://www.michelin.co.uk/connected/tyres/learn-sh...
They seem quite taken with the idea http://join-the-fight.michelin.co.uk/#/home
Goodyear even designed a tyre spcifically with this in mind. http://eu.goodyear.com/uk_en/tires/repository/opti...
Bridgestone....... http://www.bridgestone.co.uk/press/press-releases/...
Rospa thought braking distance was important enough to test it http://www.rospa.com/RoadSafety/info/tyre_tread_de...
I could go on but I don't think we're likely to agree
If stopping distance is so crucial to you, do you ever drive above 30 mph, because every extra 1 mph of speed increases your stopping distance?
Sticks. said:
Btw every authority apart from the ones I quoted 
Er, Michelin and Goodyear say they should go on the back. http://www.goodyeartires.com/faqs/Care.html#s9
Don't know if the others have expressed an opinion and I can't be bothered to look.
In my real world experience with two different, although both French cars, I found out that lift off oversteer was horrific and extremely easy to provoke with the better tyres on the front. Putting the better tyres on the rear was much easier to handle. New tyres all round is the best answer. The cars involved were a Peugeot 1.8 D and a Citroen ZX 1.9D. Not exactly performance cars, but very tail happy.
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