4 different tires on one vehicle

Status
Not open for further replies.
I don't think that this is good practice, but I can see that it wouldn't be as horrible as some make it out to be.
Nobody would run four mismatched tires on anything but a beater and almost every beater still on the road these days is FWD.
Under hard cornering, the outside front tire rules and the rest are pretty much just along for the ride.
Therefore, I don't think that differences between the tires matter all that much.
It'll always be the outside front that determines the car's behavoir with the rest just following along.
It also requires serious work to get a FWD car to try to swap ends on you.
Give it a try sometime on a wet road where you have plenty of room for recovery.
Bet you can't make it happen without resorting to tweaking the parking brake.
 
Originally Posted By: silveravant
Bald tires on the back of a FWD car can provide lots of excitement (or death) in rain or snow.


So you're a Clevelander?
I grew up in Rocky River, so I'm familiar with driving in snow, which we get here, just not as much.
WRT driving a FWD car on rears with iffy tread in rain and snow, BTDT with no dire consequences.
The rear just obediently follows the front.
In stock form, given the weight bias, front and rear roll stiffness and center of roll, a FWD car will always plow at the limit.
Now, somebody with a tool set, a garage and an internet connection could play around with the front and rear spring rates and the bars and build a FWD car that would have great turn-in but might be inclined to oversteer at its limits, but this is never a problem in stock form with any FWD car even with four different tires on the four corners.
 
I don't think it's a big deal unless it's an AWD vehicle. Better to have 4 mismatched all the same size tires with decent tread than 4 bald tires that match.
 
I run 3 different tyres on my beater Falcon. Left front is Dunlop, right front Goodyear, both rears are Geotred. All are 215/60 16, and 95V. They are all within 20 percent of each other wear wise. Car drives just the same as it did with a matched set of 4, keeping in mind that it rarely gets out of the urban area. Would I do it on my wife's Mazda? Probably not.
 
You could put four different tires and yet have the same tire, with these older ones:

Michelin Harmony/Destiny/X Radial DT/WeatherWise II.

Don't know if the cosmetic differences in the tread pattern would make a difference, but they are all basically the same tire, with the same construction, compound and general design of the tread pattern (some are mirror images, all with slightly different smaller sipes).
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: silveravant
Bald tires on the back of a FWD car can provide lots of excitement (or death) in rain or snow.


So you're a Clevelander?
I grew up in Rocky River, so I'm familiar with driving in snow, which we get here, just not as much.
WRT driving a FWD car on rears with iffy tread in rain and snow, BTDT with no dire consequences.
The rear just obediently follows the front.
In stock form, given the weight bias, front and rear roll stiffness and center of roll, a FWD car will always plow at the limit.
Now, somebody with a tool set, a garage and an internet connection could play around with the front and rear spring rates and the bars and build a FWD car that would have great turn-in but might be inclined to oversteer at its limits, but this is never a problem in stock form with any FWD car even with four different tires on the four corners.


00-11 Focuses with a factory rear swaybar will oversteer at the limits. I don't know about the 12+ but I assume it's the same for them as well since it's the same suspension setup.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top