Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Tire tips


I did some research after my trip to NTB. Here's interesting information. (It's not me speaking.)

I had always thought that if it's a front wheel drive car, then surely I want my good tires on the front, right?

However, when installing 2 new tires with a deeper tread than the other two, they should be placed in the rear to minimize the chance of oversteer.

What is oversteer?

OVERSTEER:
The tendency of a vehicle to steer into a sharper turn than the driver intends, sometimes with a thrusting of the rear of the vehicle to the outside. Example a vehicle is said to have an oversteer condition during a turn when the rear tires have less grip on the driving service than the front tires have. The tendency is for the rear of the vehicle to slide out toward the outside of the turn. Oversteer is also referred to by the term Loose.

The tire manufacturer's have been saying for years that the better tires, when they are not matched, should go on the rear of the car. I had just never heard it until recently when my tire guy informed me.

They maintain that it's all about control and you have less control in the rear, so the better tires should be back there so you don't lose control/oversteer. (You don't want the back end coming around on you!)

Check out some links I dug up, especially that last one...

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/t...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tires
(Look under tread section.)

http://www.michelinman.com/care/reartire...
(Download the larger 9 meg video if you have high speed internet. It's worth it.)

Go with what your tire stores and tire manufactuer's are telling you and not what your friend, your dad, or some so-called answer's expert says. That includes me.

9 comments:

Squirrel said...

And here I thought oversteer was when you had too many male cattle on your ranch...

Susan said...

New tires...I should look into this...

NoRegrets said...

Ar ar squirrel...
Susan, it is one thing that sometimes needs replacing!

M. Robert Turnage said...

And the new adjective to describe you is "educational."

Squirrel said...

Seriously though, isn't this another way to say fishtailing?

Tera said...

LMAO @ Squirrel!

And this is certainly more than I needed to know about oversteer...I just came over to be subtle and announce that I'm on a roll Chicka-dee!

NoRegrets said...

MRT, I always wanted to be educational.
Squirrel, don't obsess. :-)
TERA, ever the subtle one (I was going to write stubble one!)

Churlita said...

I just bought tires. I go to this place I trust and they never steer me wrong. (Get it? Steer?)

I have all wheel drive so I don't know if it makes a difference which tires I put where...Or does it?

NoRegrets said...

Churlita, I think with AWD you have to replace all 4 at once.