New Tire - Must Be On Rear?
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From: bearn on 25 Sep 2009 08:25 On Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:35:21 -0700, "CWLee" <cdubyalee(a)post.harvard.edu> wrote: > >6 months ago got a set of 4 new tires at Costco. 5000 miles >later one tire, right front, failed. Costco replaced it, >charging me about $30 for my tread wear. So far so good. > >Then Costco said it was required (implication was by law) to >put the new tire on the rear, and move the slightly used >rear one to the forward. I had no problem with that, but I >wonder if: > >1. That is a genuine legal requirement or not? (This is in >California, so it could be a state law, not a federal law.) > >2. If not required by law, is this an industry standard? > >3. If the answer to either of the above is YES, what is the >rationale behind it. I always believed it was safer to have >the best tires on the front, to decrease the danger of >loosing steering control during a blowout at speed, thinking >that one won't be likely to lose steering control if a rear >tire blows. > >Comments? I bought 2 new tires at Firestone (in Pennsylvania) a couple of years ago, and they said that their policy is to put new ones on the rear. I requested otherwise, and they did it after I signed a waiver on their service order. So, I'd say it's a company policy rather than law.
From: Ad absurdum per aspera on 30 Sep 2009 16:55 > I always believed it was safer to have > the best tires on the front, to decrease the danger of > loosing steering control during a blowout at speed, thinking > that one won't be likely to lose steering control if a rear > tire blows. That's the venerable conventional wisdom passed down to me by Dad, but it's apparently been contradicted by new research. (I might add that if you're worried about "blowouts," which are not as common as they used to be, you need a new tire no matter what its position, though even a regular sort of flat at speed is not necessarily great fun.) Costcos of my acquaintance have had this policy for several years. Their actual policy is, "When you select a pair of replacement tires in the same size and construction as those on the car, you must put them on the rear axle. A single new tire must be paired on the rear axle with the tire having the most tread depth of the other three." (http://tires.costco.com/TSSapp/TireFAQ.xhtml?pn=FAQS) I think it's company policy, in accordance with recommendations from the Tire Industry Association (http://www.tireindustry.org/ tire_safety_starts_here_ATS.asp), rather than law or regulation, but it's fairly common now. See for instance http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/infoTiresRear.dos or in greater depth http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=52 How they handle cars and light trucks that intentionally have different tire sizes and/or types on front and rear, I don't know. Cheers, --Joe
From: Steve on 30 Sep 2009 23:11
CWLee wrote: > > 6 months ago got a set of 4 new tires at Costco. 5000 miles later one > tire, right front, failed. Costco replaced it, charging me about $30 > for my tread wear. So far so good. > > Then Costco said it was required (implication was by law) to put the new > tire on the rear, Its not required by law, its required by their lawYERs. There's a misguided belief that putting "less grippy" tires on the rear of a car will cause it to be more likely to spin out of control (ie, oversteer or be "loose.") Understeer is generally safer than oversteer, so they don't want ANY liability that they might have been responsible for causing the car to oversteer. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of passenger cars, ESPECIALLY front-drive cars, are built with such a huge built-in understeer that you'd have to put *really* slippery tires on the back to make them oversteer. IMO, putting the worn tires on the back of most FWD cars will actually give them something a little closer to a neutral handling characteristic. |