The Bridgestone Potenza RE040's on my E46 coupe are getting worn, though the rears tires are in worse shape than the fronts. I'd like to replace the rears first and wait until next year to do the front tires.
I'm thinking I may not go with Bridgestones when I purchase the replacements. Would it cause any problems to have different brands on the rear for a period of time than those on the front?
Thanks,
Kevin
As long as they are the right size and type, and not cheapies, you'll probably not notice the difference. Certainly not enough to cause concern. Mike.
Keep tyres on the same axle matching to keep grip on each side of car similar when braking. Different front to rear is OK. RE040 are optimised for dry summer conditions. If you spend time driving in wet conditions you are likely to notice better traction from other tyre types. Wife's Mazda 6 has much better traction in the wet since switching from the Bridgestones to Pirelli P6000
I used to have bridgestone S02's which were simply fantastic in the wet. The car had no traction control and I rarely needed it. I did then put S03s on and wasn't so impressed.
Front and rear different - unlikely to be a problem (they are even different sizes on many BMW's). In general put the wider / better ones at the back.
OMA do NOT mix tyres on the same axle.
Look at it this way, if differences in tire compound are going to show up it's not giong to be doing 30 taking grandma to church now is it?
No, it's gonna be that corner that you don't care if it's wet because you've taken it a thousand times and know exactly what the car can do.
Whoops. You knew what the car could do with four tires exactly the same and now the fact that your back end is now leading the way and you're following in the front cabin suggests different tires behave differently and there are times when this matters.
So can you mix different tires? Depends how you drive. My dad gets away with it. I won't even try any more.
To be sure there are tires you can "match" that act pretty similarly but then again there are random combinations, mostly differing in when the tire breaks away, that are bordering on downright lethal and that can be said of even different tires within a given manufacturor.
Different sizes - but not different brands or models within one brand.
Tom K.
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