Help me decide – should I change my front tyres for Eurotrip
Discussion
Car TVR Chimaera 500
About to go on a 2000 mile trip across Europe. I have a long distance to cover and may have to travel a long way on wet motorways if I get unlucky with the weather.
Toyo T1-Rs all round and visually in good condition. (Car garaged, so tyres not left in sunlight.) Rears are bigger/wider than fronts, so can’t swap front to back.
Rears: New (mid-2010 stamp), 7+ mm, changed last year, only covered 2000 miles.
Fronts: Old (mid-2005 stamp), 4+ mm, on since before I bought car 2 years ago.
Options:
A) Keep the current tyres
Pros: Best tyres will be on the rear so more stable through the rain (Generally want most grip at rear, as heavily debated in previous threads. Please don’t turn this into a thread purely to debate this point)
Cons: Older tyres will be more likely to bow out? Compound will be harder?
B) Put new front tyres on
Pros: Fairly new tyres all round, less likely to blow or do anything erratic. Better at cutting through standing water
Cons: Best grip will be at the front, making the back unstable through standing water?
What would you do and why?
About to go on a 2000 mile trip across Europe. I have a long distance to cover and may have to travel a long way on wet motorways if I get unlucky with the weather.
Toyo T1-Rs all round and visually in good condition. (Car garaged, so tyres not left in sunlight.) Rears are bigger/wider than fronts, so can’t swap front to back.
Rears: New (mid-2010 stamp), 7+ mm, changed last year, only covered 2000 miles.
Fronts: Old (mid-2005 stamp), 4+ mm, on since before I bought car 2 years ago.
Options:
A) Keep the current tyres
Pros: Best tyres will be on the rear so more stable through the rain (Generally want most grip at rear, as heavily debated in previous threads. Please don’t turn this into a thread purely to debate this point)
Cons: Older tyres will be more likely to bow out? Compound will be harder?
B) Put new front tyres on
Pros: Fairly new tyres all round, less likely to blow or do anything erratic. Better at cutting through standing water
Cons: Best grip will be at the front, making the back unstable through standing water?
What would you do and why?
Will the older compound be considerably harder, or more likely to blow out?
It seems a shame to throw out 2 decent looking tyres, but I only realised how old they were when I checked the date stamp today.
Having said that, would that £200 give me piece of mind when pressing on in the wet?
It seems a shame to throw out 2 decent looking tyres, but I only realised how old they were when I checked the date stamp today.
Having said that, would that £200 give me piece of mind when pressing on in the wet?
McHaggis said:
tomsugden said:
If your front tyres are > 5 years old, aren't they due a change anyway?
Why 5 yrs?tomsugden said:
I took my wife's MX5 to get new tyres last week. The tyres on it had lots of tread, but we only bought the car recently and it had 3 different types of budget tyre, and I'm not a fan of them. The garage told me that the tyres were stamped 2001, and should be replaced after 5 years anyway.
I'm sure it's a reasonable recommendation, I've just never seen any requiment to, or anything explicit in the mot tests, etc, which always makes me think it is those with the tyre change in their interest... After all, it's not a bad idea to change them when they get to 4mm. But it's not a requirement...
k the tyres up and buy new to replace.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff