[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by srikant

There is a bulge on my Civic's tyre (Bridgestone Turanza 195 65 R 15 tubeless) , do i need to get the tyre replaced or is there any other solution? If it needs replacement can i just buy 2 new tyres for front and use other tyres for rear by discarding just the bulged tyre?

The tyre must be replaced. You can replace two, but the new tyres must go in the rear. There is a Michelin video on this, due to oversteer issues the new tyres muct always be in the rear. You can search youtube for it. I have posted the link at least thrice on this forum.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

The tyre must be replaced. You can replace two, but the new tyres must go in the rear. There is a Michelin video on this, due to oversteer issues the new tyres muct always be in the rear. You can search Youtube for it. I have posted the link at least thrice on this forum.

I haven't seen the video, but its quite logical. When you put new tyres in the front, the front end has more grip than rear end. During spirited driving under certain conditions like rain/gravel road, the front end will bite while rear end will slip and slide.

But oversteer in a front wheel drive car (because of difference in front/rear wheel grip) is not dangerous or difficult to control. Since the rear wheels are not powered, you will never "overcook" a turn and the car will not skid off the road (like in a RWD car).

That's why I'd prefer putting new tyres in the front and old tyres at the back. With new tyres at the front, the tendency of the car to understeer will go down (which is a good thing). Also, new tyres have less tendency to burst on high speed drives. Front tyre blowout is more difficult to manage/control than rear tyre blowout.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by smartcat

I haven't seen the video, but its quite logical. When you put new tyres in the front, the front end has more grip than rear end. During spirited driving under certain conditions like rain/gravel road, the front end will bite while rear end will slip and slide.

But oversteer in a front wheel drive car (because of difference in front/rear wheel grip) is not dangerous or difficult to control. Since the rear wheels are not powered, you will never "overcook" a turn and the car will not skid off the road (like in a RWD car).

This is the poster, which says the same thing http://www.michelinman.com/mediabin/...lin_042009.pdf.

One of the videos on youtube is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa9hzcjdi5Q

Pretty convincing!

[manim]

Thanks for the video!

I had read a long time back on the Michelin web-site about putting new tires always in rear for front-wheel-drive cars, and I had always followed this.

But the guys in HASS (Madurai) are ignorant and recommend putting it in front.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by manim

But the guys in HASS (Madurai) are ignorant and recommend putting it in front.

I also thought so until I came across this family of videos.

[SmartCat]

Found this thread -
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-a...ront-rear.html.

I think the mods should move this discussion to the above thread.

Personally, I'd still put new tyres in the front. The front does 100% of the steering and possibly 60% to 70% of the braking - because of the front/rear weight distribution in a typical car.

The video is showing a scenario where the rear tyres are almost 100% bald. How do I know? Because of certain circumstances (800 kms drive, wrong alignment, not noticing the problem), I have driven my car with rear bald tyres. I got to know about the problem only when it rained and the roads were wet. I could feel the rear end jiggle about at just 60 kmph.

Under normal circumstances, when you still have some tread left in the rear tyres, you won't have the above problem. You have no business driving a car with totally bald tyres in the rear anyway.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by manim

Thanks for the video!

I had read a long time back on the Michelin web-site about putting new tires always in rear for front-wheel-drive cars, and I had always followed this.

But the guys in HASS (Madurai) are ignorant and recommend putting it in front.

Not particular to Civic, but regardless of the drive wheels, I would put the more grippy tires at the rear. It is more difficult to control a rear-end fishtail than a front wheel skid. I think the Michelin also recommends the same.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Found this thread -
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-a...ront-rear.html.

I think the mods should move this discussion to the above thread.

Fine, but then they should leave a link to this thread here.

I will not ttry and second guess Michelin, who incidentally are the inventors of the Radial Ply Tyre in the 1950's.

[RoadTrippin]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

In India, most of the times, the new tyres are fitted at the front. According to various experts, this is wrong. Even Michelin recommends that the new tyres be fitted at the back.

My problem is this: How do we convince Indians to fit it at the back.

Only just seeing this thread, before convincing most indians, you should start with your staff maybe? Just today, they recommended i put the new Michelins in the front and the older stock Goodyears at the back

[sinhead]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Personally, I'd still put new tyres in the front. The front does 100% of the steering and possibly 60% to 70% of the braking - because of the front/rear weight distribution in a typical car.

I agree with smart cat.

The video is convincing, but still in the normal city driving speeds (<50kmph on most days), driving around streets which have debris, sand, pebbles, I would be more concerned about understeer, or front tyres skidding, as smartcat mentioned earlier. And also since brake bias is towards the front wheels, them having more grip is reassuring - typical traffic scenarios when the car in front brakes suddenly or a cycle, cycle rickshaw just cuts through the road. I face this much more during everyday driving in NCR, though at slow speeds.
If I frequent the highways more and drive fast most of the time, then, new tyres at the rear might make more sense.

But I am open to suggestions and being convinced otherwise (since there are people who have driven much more than I have). Will read up more on this.

[y448]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Under normal circumstances, when you still have some tread left in the rear tyres, you won't have the above problem. You have no business driving a car with totally bald tyres in the rear anyway.

For normal city driving I don't mind going with new tyres at the front in places where it doesn't snow or ice forms on roads. Though not the best thing to do, it is a reasonable compromise.

I had recently moved out the relatively more worn out tyres from front to back to extent the tyre life.

[suchit23]

So my friend who owns an SX4 had terrible ride issues suddenly with the steering vibrating significantly even at low speeds. As it turned out one of his stock JK Vectra tyres had its sidewall damaged. When they switched that with the Stepney all is well.

Now for long term he needs to buy a new tyre or probably a couple. And surely he doesn't want to buy the JK but probably a Michelin or Bridgestone. So the question is if it is OK to have a different make of tyres in front as opposed to back with the same specs? The stock spec is 205/60 R16.

Or any other better suggestions to deal with the situation? And any suggestions for a good tyre as such for the given specs and car?

[Ragavsr]

If only one tyre is damaged, I would suggest buying one new tyre of any brand and keep that as the spare.
You an use different make of tyres in the front as long as both the front tyres are of the same make and similar wear and tear condition.
The best option is buying 1 tyre and using that as a spare. Use the present spare in place of the damaged tyre as you have already done so that both the front tyres are at the same level of wear and tear.

[bullrun87]

Ideally one should replace all four tyres at the same time and using tyres of different makes or tread patterns should be avoided. I am sure if the current tyres are in good health, he can expect to get a reasonable amount upon selling them. However, I don't see any problems in mixing up brands as long as tyres of the same brand, tread pattern and age are used on a particular axle. In your case If your friend wants to buy only two tyres, he should buy the bridgestones or michelins of the SAME size and place these new tyres on the rear axle. He must also ensure that he never runs the vehicle with dissimilar tyres on the same axle.

[deep_bang]

My thoughts: As long as the size is the same it should be fine.

Seeing the above posts on wear and tear and thread pattern being similar, I am not sure how relevant they are. We always rotate tyres around with different tread wear - so I suppose different treads should not matter isn't it?

Similarly on the tread pattern, specially in India, nearly all tyres are all-weather tyres. Although their pattern may be different they react nearly similar in real-world situations. And the real world conditions could be very complex even if similar tyres are used - say one tyre going on a sheet of water while the other one still on dry tarmac. So I think it is ok to use different tread patterns too, but lets see what the tyre experts have to say!