94 Intrepid - replacing just 2 tires?

What, you'd rather give natural selection an unfettered path?

--Geoff

An idiot counterperson at a Discount Tire fed me the same line and treated me like I didn't have a clue when I insisted on what I wanted done to MY car. I've never set foot back in that particular store again, nor will I. I went to another Discount Tire where I was treated like an intelligent car owner and they happily did what I wanted instead of feeding me a line of BS they learned in "training" somewhere.

To their credit, the reasoning isn't totally invalid for some cars- they don't want to create a car prone to oversteer by putting tires with less traction on the back. The fatal flaw in their argument is that front-drive cars are so HEAVILY prone to understeer already that putting the more worn tires on the back actually helps balance the car's handling. However, it also makes the tires last longer and they don't get to sell as many.

This is a good point. They *should* do what you want; their legal team has advised them otherwise.

Right...

The fatal flaw in their argument is that

Sorry, gotta disagree. In snowy climes, having the worn tires on the back creates spinout accidents, even when travelling in a straight line. It happened this past winter to my dad in his Sebring; it happened to me about

9 years ago in my Duster. Both times the car was steered straight ahead and hit a slicker-than-the-rest-of-the-road spot, and both times there was a significant disparity between the amount of tread front to rear. You hear about these things happening on the traffic reports in the wintertime here virtually every snowy day.

Re: 'balanced handling': with FWD, I always want the front end to break loose *first*. I've played around quite a bit in snow with lift-throttle oversteer in the Intrepid (leave the AutoSchtick in 1st, hammer the gas, cut the wheel, cut the throttle) and it's *extremely* hard to catch the rear end once it starts coming around. You can do it, but you're usually almost to

180 degrees before you do. That's real low-speed stuff, too; no more than about 15 MPH. Higher speeds? I spin out.

Conversely, unless I'm really in a lot of trouble, I don't have any problem getting a hand on things if it starts to push, however.

In perfectly dry conditions, having the worn tires on the back probably doesn't matter one way or the other until you're really pushing the limits of adhesion; wet or icy/snowy conditions, it's a snake that could bite you anytime with little warning. BTDT.

--Geoff

This is Central Texas. Snow is not an issue.

I don't think you could POSSIBLY put slick enough tires on the back that this wouldn't be the case with most FWD cars. They are hugely biased toward understeer. Heck, most REAR-drive passenger cars are heavily biased toward understeer! If I had a wreck after visiting Discount Tire, I could more defensibly sue them for putting the worn tires on the front and giving me a car that understeers so badly I couldn't turn it than I could claim they caused oversteer by putting worn tires on the back. Its just not possible.

They are flat-out doing the WRONG thing for 90% of the cars on the road.

We've gotta get you up here in the wintertime sometime, Steve. Pick a January for NAIAS, and we'll go sledding down I-94, K? :-)

I think this is the source of this sort of idiocy: every business is national now, and they implement one-size-fits-all policies. Down there I 'spect there's a lot of subtle differences--some not so subtle--that have an impact. Do y'all (a little Texas talk ;-)) get torrential downpours frequently, or is your climate too dry? In other words, is hydroplaning a common problem?

I agree with your assessment that it's wrong for 90% of the cars...in non-snowy climates. Maybe 99%.

I won't go so far as to say that putting the worn tires in the rear

*guarantees* a spinout in icy conditions, but I'd be willing to bet you that 90% of the spinouts that happen have a tire-related cause, and a significant (> 50%) amount of the cause is worn rear tires. I'm guessing, pulling numbers out of my butt, but these things happen enough around here that you typically get to see a lot of spinouts during a snowstorm. In my case and my dad's it was *clearly* because of the rear tires. No doubt about it.

You know, for as throttle-happy, herky-jerky 'big city' as I drive, I guess I'm pretty blessed that I've really only _unintentionally_ lost control of a vehicle once in what...19 years on the road? And it was the damn back tires.

--Geoff

I'm allergic to cold weather. It makes me break out in a bad mood :-)

Definitely. Typical rain patterns here are none for months and then 6 inches in a day.

But let me be clear, we're talking about all 4 tires that are still PERFECTLY safe to drive on. The yahoos just want to put the new ones on the back of FWD cars because they know that it will wear the old ones out much faster, resulting in another sale for them.