Tyre rotation - yes or no?

[alogbe]

I am about to buy 4 new tyres for my A6 Avant, and I'm thinking ahead to what rotation policy I should follow - if any.

My previous car was an A4 Avant. When my last set new tyres was about half worn, I had them rotated (front to back, no direction change) and immediately there was a noticeable increase in noise. I talked to the tyre dealer about it and he said that that was to be expected when tyres are rotated after a fairly high mileage; he said that the way to avoid it is to do the rotation much more often - maybe every 5,000 miles - so that the tyre doesn't get "worn in" to a particular position. Either that, or not to do it at all: let the tyre get worn in, but leave it there.

In his opinion. if you don't rotate the tyres at all, you will have the inconvenience (on a FWD car) that the front and rear pairs will need replacing at different times; but you will get higher mileage overall, and you won't have the noise problem.

Any experience or opinions on this?

[ini]

Front tyres wear approx twice as fast as rears on average, so ideally you would replace all four, then replace the fronts, then replace all four again.

Having said that, i tend to buy tyres in pairs, and put them on the front, swapping the part worns onto the rear.

This does speed up the wear on the rears, but nowhere near as much as continual swapping every few thousand miles would.

[Crasher]

The current thinking is new tyres on the rear and fit the old rears on the front. Odd sounding I know but that is the current thinking from tyre manufacturers. I don’t rotate tyres at the service as it means you need four in one go. My fronts are getting low so I will put the slightly worn rears on the front and the new ones on the back.

[Hex69]

The current thinking is new tyres on the rear and fit the old rears on the front. Odd sounding I know but that is the current thinking from tyre manufacturers. I don’t rotate tyres at the service as it means you need four in one go. My fronts are getting low so I will put the slightly worn rears on the front and the new ones on the back.

The reasoning being is that the rears will give more grip being new than the fronts, as people can't deal with oversteer any more.

[zollaf]

my argument is to put the better tyres on the front. the reason being that you are very unlikely to get oversteer, unless you drive very hard, but you are much more likely to need to stop quickly, if for instance a child wanders out in front of you. in this situation, the front tyres do the work, and with the better tyres on the front, you are far less likely to skid or lock up a wheel, causing the abs to cut in, increasing your stopping distance, especially in the wet. case closed.

[paul b]

I would always swap the new tyres to the front and the part worns to the rear, just liki ini suggests.

However like Crasher says, these days tyre fitters will insist you put the new ones on the rear so that you have more grip, reducing the risk of oversteer. I bought some Michelins for my Vectra from Costco, and had them fitted. I asked for them to go on the front and move the part worns to the rear but they wouldn't do it. So I let them do what they wanted and rotated them myself when I got home. :D

[alogbe]

my argument is to put the better tyres on the front. the reason being that you are very unlikely to get oversteer, unless you drive very hard, but you are much more likely to need to stop quickly, if for instance a child wanders out in front of you. in this situation, the front tyres do the work, and with the better tyres on the front, you are far less likely to skid or lock up a wheel, causing the abs to cut in, increasing your stopping distance, especially in the wet. case closed.

I don't think it can be as simple as that. All four tyres play a part, not just the front two. If you lose grip at the back and the car begins a spin, I question how effective the braking at the front will be.

If you could be sure of staying in a straight line, it might be different.

"Experts" can be wrong, but if they all say the same thing perhaps they're right.

[zollaf]

almost all cars on the road today have abs fitted as standard, so skidding is taken out of the equation, as abs prevents this. so when you brake hard, either in a straight line or on a bend, the front tyres do 90% of the work , due to weight transfer to the front. this is where you need the grip.even without abs, if you lock the fronts up, you carry on in a straight line into a ditch if you skid. with abs you still steer, providing the grip is there. so if you have to do an emergency stop on a bend, the fronts have to stop you and steer you, and this is where you need most grip.

[ini]

I do like having new tyres on the rear if i am going to tow anything long distance.

Otherwise front traction is more important for me than rear traction, as i learned not to push it too hard soon after buying my A4, when the back end steps out, even though it is slow and sedate, it tends to step out big time. (like my old golf cab GTI that inevitably used to 360 when pushed to hard)

[alogbe]

...skidding is taken out of the equation, as abs prevents this...I'm certainly not an expert, but I am a bit sceptical about this claim. If we are talking only about straight-line braking, I can see the point. But I haven't seen anyone explain how ABS can prevent a tyre from sliding sideways.

It's an important point, I think, because the need for emergency braking can arise just as easily in a bend as on the straight. If the rear tyres lose sideways adhesion, the car is beginning a spin, and I would have doubts about my ability to stop the car in that situation, no matter what the front tyres are doing. In fact, if the front tyres grip and the rear tyres don't, the spin will be accelerated.

I admit that I am influenced by the fact that the people who make my car (Audi) and the people who make my tyres (Michelin) apparently take the same view about where to put the better tyres.

[paul b]

I'm certainly not an expert, but I am a bit sceptical about this claim. If we are talking only about straight-line braking, I can see the point. But I haven't seen anyone explain how ABS can prevent a tyre from sliding sideways.

It's an important point, I think, because the need for emergency braking can arise just as easily in a bend as on the straight. If the rear tyres lose sideways adhesion, the car is beginning a spin, and I would have doubts about my ability to stop the car in that situation, no matter what the front tyres are doing. In fact, if the front tyres grip and the rear tyres don't, the spin will be accelerated.

I admit that I am influenced by the fact that the people who make my car (Audi) and the people who make my tyres (Michelin) apparently take the same view about where to put the better tyres.
A good driver knows his limits. A good driver won't depend on the electronics to stop him hitting that tree in the distance.

[zollaf]

A good driver knows his limits. A good driver won't depend on the electronics to stop him hitting that tree in the distance.


well said. if a rear tyre steps out sideways on a bend, while having to do an emergency stop, or just while driving, then you were travelling too fast, beyond your limit point. if a car is driven within the limit point, then an emergency stop is also taken out of the equation. ABS wont and cant stop a tyre breaking away and going sideways, it can only help this situation by not locking the wheel up. a turning wheel will not slip out, unless your going too fast, no matter how much tread you have.

[Issac Hunt]

I rotate mine as my car is Quattro but for a FWD I wouldnt bother.

The idea of the best tyres on the rear is for blowout prevention. If you have a blowout (not a slow puncture!) on a front tyre chances are you can bring the car to a controlled stop.

If you have a blowout on a rear tyre (especially on the motorway) then the chances are that you will spin/crash. ABS will do NOTHING to prevent/control this, you cant brake a wheel that has no tyre left on it!!

[alogbe]

...if a car is driven within the limit point, then an emergency stop is also taken out of the equation...
I'm not sure what this means. Are you saying that an emergency stop should never be necessary? Have you forgotten the "child wandering out in front of you" that you mentioned earlier? The child might wander out in front of you on a wet bend.

I think you're overlooking another point. You yourself may be the perfect driver, always driving "within the limit point", but some drivers are human. The behaviour of the car in an emergency is important; it isn't enough to say that emergencies should be avoided.

[zollaf]

driving within the limit point means that you never go so fast as you cant stop within the distance that you can see. so on a straight road, you travel fast, but on a bend you slow down, so that you can stop safely within the distance that you can see. that way, if you go into a left hand bend and theres a tractor in the way, you can brake and stop before hitting it. the bend might be able to be taken at 50 mph, but the limit point may be at 25mph. i dont try to say i am a perfect driver at all. a good driver, yes, but not perfect. in 18 years i have never had a conviction, and only been involved in 1 accident, which was not my fault. in those 18 years i have had to do a fair few emergency stops, sometimes to avoid an accident, sometimes just to practice. i have never had the back end come out, with or without abs. but i have had the front go out, wanting to travel straight, so this is my reasoning for putting the best tyres to the front. this is not scientific, and i dont proclaim to be an expert on the subject. experienced yes, expert no.
you say some drivers are only human. this is no excuse for travelling too fast, beyond your capabilities. yes a child can step out into the road without you seeing them, in which case you then need to jump on the anchors and steer around them, the crucial point is stear. where do you need the best tyres in this situation?

[Issac Hunt]

Yes but its ABS that allows you to steer while braking as hard as you can. If you had new tyres and no ABS you wouldnt be able to steer while braking to the maximum. Locked wheels cannot do any steering.

Its a personal thing I guess but the leaflet from Goodyear that I saw explained the blowout principle. You can save a car with a front blow out but the chances of not crashing with a high speed rear blowout are slim to non-existant.

[zollaf]

Yes but its ABS that allows you to steer while braking as hard as you can. If you had new tyres and no ABS you wouldnt be able to steer while braking to the maximum. Locked wheels cannot do any steering.


unless you use cadence braking.

[alogbe]

driving within the limit point means that you never go so fast as you cant stop within the distance that you can see...I understand your message, of course, and it's a worthy objective. But in the real world, the "distance you can see" can be instantly reduced to nothing, or nearly nothing, through no fault of yours.

Three things that have happened to me in the last 10 years:

(1) a deer coming out of a wood, at night, bouncing off the front corner of my car into the windscreen and breaking it: "distance I could see" reduced from maybe half a kilometre to about eighteen inches.

(2) a length of pipe, tied to the roof of a van that turned across my path perfectly safely, except that the pipe came adrift at one end and whipped round into my path although the van itself had completed the turn.

(3) a cyclist, at night, wearing dark clothes and without any lights, emerging at high speed from a minor road and crossing the road right in front of me.

The ABS worked every time. In the first case all I did was hit the brakes. In the second two I swerved and hit the brakes, so I was in effect doing an emergency stop in the middle of a turn: not deliberately, just as an instinctive reaction.

Nobody was hurt in any of these incidents (not counting the deer) but it was pure luck that no other road users were around. I didn't hit the pipe or the van, and I didn't hit the cyclist, but it was close. I think it's simply not realistic to believe that you can avoid such situations in real life, and when it happened, the car's behaviour in an emergency manoeuvre probably contributed as much as my driving.

[paul b]

How has this thread turned from tyre rotation to discussing ABS, wild deer and young children? :confused:

Lets get one thing straight, car manufacturers wouldn't equip their cars with ABS and TC etc if it didn't provide an advantage.

And about tyre blow-outs, provided the tyre moved to the rear hasn't got a damaged sidewall, or a nail in it, then its just as safe as the new tyre on the front. If you drive over a few large nails it makes no difference how deep the tread is, you're still likely to end up with a blow-out!

For the record, I'm 47 now, been driving since I was 18, have always put the best tyres on the front, and have never had an accident my fault or not that could have been avoided by me putting the worn tyres on the back instead.

[alogbe]

How has this thread turned from tyre rotation to discussing ABS, wild deer and young children?It was a reasonable progression, I think, from talking about tyre rotation to talking about where you should put the better tyres.

As for the rest, I was trying to make the point that no matter how carefully you drive, there can always be situations in which the car's behaviour under stress is as important as your driving. And the car's behaviour is affected by many things, including the tyres.

You said:
...car manufacturers wouldn't equip their cars with ABS and TC etc if it didn't provide an advantage.I agree. Doesn't the same thing apply to their recommendation to put the better tyres at the back?

[paul b]

so if you have to do an emergency stop on a bend, the fronts have to stop you and steer you, and this is where you need most grip.
Key point zollaf mentions above, you need to steer, you do that with the front wheels, so that should be where you need the grip.


the crucial point is steer. where do you need the best tyres in this situation?
As he mentions again.


It was a reasonable progression, I think, from talking about tyre rotation to talking about where you should put the better tyres.

As for the rest, I was trying to make the point that no matter how carefully you drive, there can always be situations in which the car's behaviour under stress is as important as your driving. And the car's behaviour is affected by many things, including the tyres.

You said:I agree. Doesn't the same thing apply to their recommendation to put the better tyres at the back?
That is a recommendation for those who can't deal with oversteer. Either that, or the recommendation is there for those who simply travel too fast, going beyond the limit, and ending up in an oversteer situation.

The point is you should never get yourself into an oversteer situation on a road. You don't need to travel so fast. If you do, with good front tyres, you can use the front end grip to counteract the oversteer, hence reducing the slide, provided your brake and throttle inputs don't accelerate the oversteer.