I will be rotating my tyres this week owing to the rears hardly showing any wear after 15k on my 220 sportline. The front tyres are wearing a little to quickly for my liking hence the reason. 

 

Do other owners still do this also? 

It makes good sense to swap them over to equalise the wear. I also do it with the winter wheels.

I swapped mine round. Simply because I want to change brands and I don't want different makes on the front and back.

Someone said to me a while back , don't do this as you will have 4 to change instead of 2. So 4 x £130 plus for my size. RAC also say keep the best tread on the back set.

Yes the likes of kwik fit website also now recommends keeping the best tyres on the rear. 

 

I'm sort of at odds with this on a FWD. I prefer the better tyre on the drive train and where the majority of the brake load is exerted. 

1 hour ago, Whenwillilearn said:

Yes the likes of kwik fit website also now recommends keeping the best tyres on the rear. 

 

I'm sort of at odds with this on a FWD. I prefer the better tyre on the drive train and where the majority of the brake load is exerted. 

I have experience of lovely, fresh, premium tyres going onto a FWD car. Great grip in the dry and off the line. 

 

Then I went round a wet corner and wondered why my FWD was oversteering! Brown pants moment to say the least!

 

The good tyres swiftly made their way onto the rear axle and the older tyres were fitted to the front. Predictable and controllable understeer was much better until replacement tyres were needed on the front. 

New tyres bring best grip on the axle they are fitted, especially in poor conditions.

Based on this postulate...

 

If new tyres are mounted on rear axle, the rear remains stable in curves and if the front axle tyres start wearing, it can only lead to understeering, which can be quite easily recovered by reducing throttle to genrate a weight transfer toward front axle, Indeed this helps increasing the grip on front tyres. Additionally pressing clutch pedal (with manual gearbox) will help front wheels spinning at the right speed, which also helps recovering grip on front wheels.

This is much more predictable and almost within reach of any driver and quite in line with what your intuition tells you to do (at least with throttle).

 

If new tyres are mounted on front axle, the front is very efficient, but the poor grip on the rear tyeres lead to understeering, which is waaay more difficult to recover for most drivers as @Freedom said.  It requires to make exactly the contrary of what your intuition tells you. Indeed if you reduce throttle or brake, weight transfer happens exactly the same way but keeps decreasing the grip on the rear axle and you... make a spin... Brown pant moment is guaranteed!

To recover from understeering (with FWD car), one shall countersteer and press gas pedal. Indeed this generates weight transfer on rear axle and helps recovering grip on rear wheels whereas front wheels drag the car in the right direction (since you countersteer).

 

Hope this helps making the safest decision, when setting new tyres...

 

Nice explanation. Same effect when braking hard in a corner (in exremis!). Don't want to lock the rears first.

Cue stories of fast 205's in the wet. But that was a 'design' feature even with 4 good tyres. 

 

 

On ‎25‎/‎08‎/‎2019 at 23:39, Whenwillilearn said:

I will be rotating my tyres this week owing to the rears hardly showing any wear after 15k on my 220 sportline. The front tyres are wearing a little to quickly for my liking hence the reason. 

 

Do other owners still do this also? 

Last week I rotated the tyres on our 19 month Karoq before its first service. Just watched the camera footage from the service bay they send you and the guy picked up the recent tyre repair when the tyres were moved to the rear. Front tyres down to 5mm on each side (now on the rear) and the rear tyres showing 6mm on each side (now on the front). This is a front wheel drive car with 18" Michelin Primacy 3 tyres and 148bhp engine after 18,748 miles so they will last at least 35,000 miles now having been rotated.

On 29/08/2019 at 19:24, Greezy56 said:

Someone said to me a while back , don't do this as you will have 4 to change instead of 2. So 4 x £130 plus for my size. RAC also say keep the best tread on the back set.

I knew someone would say this. What is the difference between paying for two tyres now and two tyres later or four tyres later?

1 hour ago, facet edge said:

I knew someone would say this. What is the difference between paying for two tyres now and two tyres later or four tyres later?

 

Whats the difference in paying £30k for a car instead of spreading it over 5 years?

 

To me its much easier to spend £200 on a pair of tyres than it is to get to the point where I need to spend £400. I don't think @Greezy56 is implying that its saving him money, it just spreads out the cost. To me it seems it seems daft putting effort into moving my wheels about to trying and get me a huge bill on purpose, 

 

If it was something AWD or a performance car where I relied on traction a bit more I would keep the tyre wear even but otherwise the wheels stay put for me.

Edited 31 August, 20196 yr by SuperbTWM

This is the only FWD drive car I have rotated tyres. All my previous FWD cars were more gentle to the front tyres. 

 

I don't recall my RWD cars being so harsh to the driven tyres either so for me it's also aids as a bit of monitoring to determine if the rotated tyres wear to a similar condition also. 

 

If they do wear in the same fashion either I need to drive a little more sedately or I have a free skoda characteristic whereby the vehicle devours front tyres! 

 

 

I tend to think about 14k - 16k miles is better time than waiting until 18-20k miles to front-back swap.  (There is more chance of them lasting nearer 30k than 40k Miles)

 

Especially sensible for those with leased cars going back before 30k miles as probably not have to buy any replacement tyres.

 

Personally not impressed with factories choice of tyre brands types, so better to have all 4 wear out together as much easier to change to all seasons.   

 

And has already been pointed out no advantage in buying 2 tyres early, but can always shove £250 in a tin this year if paying £500 in one go freaks you out.

 

One final point, if you are a low mileage driver, good chance your tyres will start to crack before you wear the tread so will have to change back tyres anyway after 5 or 6 years.

 

Edited 1 September, 20196 yr by SurreyJohn

22 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

 

Whats the difference in paying £30k for a car instead of spreading it over 5 years?

 

To me its much easier to spend £200 on a pair of tyres than it is to get to the point where I need to spend £400. I don't think @Greezy56 is implying that its saving him money, it just spreads out the cost. To me it seems it seems daft putting effort into moving my wheels about to trying and get me a huge bill on purpose, 

 

If it was something AWD or a performance car where I relied on traction a bit more I would keep the tyre wear even but otherwise the wheels stay put for me.

You just don't get it do you?

Rotate the tyres, put £200 in an interest bearing account then when all the tyres are worn out you take out the £200, add £200 and keep the interest you gained on the first £200.

Chaps, my thoughts:

 

a) The tyres are the only part of the car touching the road)

 

b) Age will degrade tyre performance: By the time they’re 7 years old they won’t perform as well (e.g. stopping the car in an emergency) as when new;

 

c) Tyres on the front axle of a FWD car will typically wear 1.5-2x as fast as those on the rear

 

Therefore, because of all of the above combined, I would rotate if your expected annual mileage on the rear tyres means they will become 5 years old or more before they get to your preferred tread wear-triggered change interval (mine is 2-2.5mm for Michelin CrossClimate+ depending on the season, as this tyre is designed to still give good performance when worn: For other brands it’d be 2.5 - 3mm).

 

For those who anticipate their wear trigger point to arrive before their adopted age trigger point does, I would say it’s optional according to your preference: Personally I prefer to wear all 4 down to the same level (through a couple of rotations to compensate for point C above) and then replace the lot; I would also replace any tyre greater than 6 years old (see point A above!).

 

Does anyone have any different habits or opinions to this?

I don't know why you're all mucking about manually rotating them.  Mine rotate simply by driving the car. If I want to rotate them faster I press harder on the little pedal on the right