Different front/rear tyre treads - does it matter?

[strappon]

does it matter if i have different brand tyres on the back compared to the fronts? i want to put micehlin pilots on the rear but have continentals on the front which dont need replacing.

would the ride/handling be adversely affected?

[johnfm]

YEs it matters a lot. I never thought it would until I mixed on my 964 - it was amazing just how bad the handling was!! Stick with one proper set of tyres.

[richardb.jones]

Depends what tyres grip the best in different situations - if your fronts grip better in say the dry but your rears less so, the you'll get more oversteer - and visa versa (with understeer obviously).

Personally I would keep the same brand to ensure a balanced car.

[MogulBoy]

Personally, I tend to favour matching tyres all round however, the trouble with the 'keeping a balanced car' objective is that this is very expensive in real terms..

The rears often wear at twice the rate of the fronts and if you run your rears down to the the legal limit, they will be much less grippy than the fronts at this point leading to oversteer opportunities

This isn't so bad in practice as the grip diminishes over the miles until you get to that point but is shows you what it is like to have a car that has a 'different' balance to the factory fresh set up.

I think if we read our manuals it will tell us that we should be replacing tyres when the tread depth reaches 4mm - primarily to reduce acquaplaning risks! I have no idea what the manuals would say in a car that was supplied with trackday rubber.

P.S. When I used to run FWD cars, there was always the temptation to fit new pairs of tyres on the front axle for better traction and swap the old fronts to the rear. However, I once read on a Michelin website that a pair of new tyres on a FWD car should always be fitted on the rear axle as they 'should' give more grip. More grip on the front compared to the rear could trigger oversteer which is harder for Joe Public to deal with.

[strappon]

thanks for the advice guys. i think i'll just stick with the conti's then. main reason i wanted to try something else was because i'd had a couple of scary instances of aqua planing on the motorway at speed

[Vesuvius 996]

Same dilemma with me at the moment.

I have 4x ContiSport N1s at the moment, rears are worn out.

Can't find any N1s anywhere, only N2s. I don't even want to mix same brand tyres with different N ratings.

So I have had to buy four tyres

BUT

Try Bracknell Tyre and Battery as they were AMAZING on price.

I got 4x Pirelli PZero Rosso for £540 all in, including fitting, balancing and VAT. Amazing deal