Tyres - should they be replaced as a set of 4?

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csirl

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Just had the car serviced. Garage said that the front tyres are close to their legal limit and so should be changed soon. Rear tyres are fine.

When buying new tyres, is it advisable to buy a full set of 4? Or is it ok just to replace the worn front tyres? If replacing just the front tyres, should they be the same make/manufacturer of the rear ones or will any manufacturers tyre of same size/type etc suffice.

Car is due for NCT in a few weeks, so will buying 4 or 2 impact on this?
 
No need to replace all 4, just do the ones that are worn. They should be the appropriate size for your car, probably would be best to have same manufacturer but isnt critical.

NCT check each tyre individually AFAIK, they dont care what brand they are (as long as they have that E mark thing)
 
Replacing just the two front tyres together would be fine. No issues at all.
 
No it is not necessary to replace all four if the two are the back perfectly OK then that is fine to replace the two front ones. The NCT does consider the state of types so anything approaching end of life should be dealt with in advance. You should make sure that you buy tyres of the same type but not necessarly the same manufacturer. Any Tyre centre worth it's salt will help you on this. Cost on average of about Eur55-110 fitted depending on the type should be about right.
 
The only time it's recommended to replace all 4 tyres is on 4x4s, but ideally each axle should be matched. So just replace the front ones.
 
I saw Vicky Butler-FenderBender on the telly a while ago and she did a demo with new tyres on the the front wheels and older (perfectly good and legal) tyres on the back. Cornering within the legal speed limit In wet weather, the rear tyres lost traction as they were unable to cope with the volume of water being squirted out by the new tyres on the front combined with the water already on the road..

They swapped the wheels back and front and tried again and the car handled perfectly. They did it with FWD and RWD and the results were the same. So the rule seems to be new tyres on the back, older tyres on the front. FWIW
 
mathepac said:
They swapped the wheels back and front and tried again and the car handled perfectly. They did it with FWD and RWD and the results were the same. So the rule seems to be new tyres on the back, older tyres on the front. FWIW
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That's interesting. I had always been led to believe the opposite to be the case....
 
The idea to put the best tyres on the back is that most of the work is done with the front tyres. Putting the worst tyres on the front means you are limited by the limits of the front (worst) tyres. Putting the best tyres on the front means you might exceed the limits of the back tyres driving to the limits of the front tyres. Also in some scenario's you don't want the back to step out or you'll spin.

That said since most of the work is done with the front tyres, in my opinion, the odds are you're more likely meet a situation where you need the best tyres on the front more often then you will need them on the back.

All that said and done you shouldn't be driving to the limits of your tyres on a public road anyway. In this case it isn't a case of the bad tyres on the back and good tyres on the front, the backs are still ok. So the OP will have 4 good tyres for normal driving.
 
roker said:
I would rather the back slide than the front
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Fair enough. Also consider that most of the time you'll be braking in a straight line, no sliding and the fronts are doing something like 80% of the braking. I haven't seen any good stats on it either way. Most of the tests I've seen only focus on specific part of safety, which is aquaplaning with worn tyres on the back. Not good tyres on back and new on the front. Or indeed any other braking tests, or anything. I'm not saying its wrong, just that its seems to focus on a very narrow scope.
 
yes but try getting a tyre fitting place to sop them over. and fit new valves at same time. the other important bit is the tracking and wheel alignment ie get car handling correctly and tyres last longer and the correct air pressures.

by putting new tyres on back you get possible wear out of tyres.
 
The drive/steering wheels will always wear more quickly than the others, so with older tyres on the front, you will need to replace them sooner.
 
this is the logic of rear to front, put on 4 new tyres and at say 22,00 miles tyres in front may be worn but rear still good for up to 40k miles, so put new on back and old on front, get 15,000 miles out them= 22, 000 + 15,000 = 37k miles. but original front only lasted 22k. but tracking etc is the real killer and driving style. i no longer do the miles so tyres last me 3 years. and the make of tyre.
 
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