Tyre choices

I inherited a mixed bag of tyres when I bought my Mk 4 Mondeo about 12 months ago.

The tyre size is 235/45R 17 97W

What I have, with tread depth, is:

Front Pirelli Pzero Rosso 3 mm Maxis MA-V1 6 mm

Rear 2 x Goodyear Excellence 4.5 mm

The spare is a space saver.

Do I just replace the Pirelli, as is, or get a pair of something, putting the Maxis on the back, throwing away one of the Goodyears still with some life in it? Should I put the newer tyres on the rear?

These days I do less than 8k miles per year, comprising a little local mileage and occasional long runs, some with caravan.

Chris

Reply to
Chris J Dixon
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Hi Chris...

I personally always prefer running 4 matching tires (as we call them here in the states...heh) But at a minimum I always have the two fronts matching each other, and the two rears matching, if price is an issue. Just a hypothetical guess for fun, based on your wear measurements - but my guess would be that the previous owner had a set of 4 Goodyears on at one point, and never rotated the tires. The fronts still wore faster than the rears, so he had put two new Pirelli's on the front. Still never rotating them, they wore, and then had a problem with one of the fronts (nail, screw, blowout, etc or something). Knowing he was selling or being stuck in a situation of some kind, just replaced it with any inexpensive tire (or tyre if you prefer) available. Anyway, just a theory and no way to prove it, but was fun trying to deduce. :)

If the Maxis is not giving you problems (ie - You like it's handling and such) I'd see if I could find a new match to that and replace the Pirelli with it, to have a match on the front and back. Then, wear them equally through proper rotations, after which I'd replace all 4 with a matching set.

By caravan, I'm assuming you mean like a camping trailer? We call them travel trailers here in the states, but if so make sure the Goodyear's have the proper weight rating to handle the load. I know the trailers in the UK are significantly smaller than here in the US, so I'm not sure it's an issue. I have a matching set of Pirelli Scorpions on my truck. But my "Caravan" is 29' long and 7,000 lbs (~9m / 3175 Kg if I did my conversions right) :)

Reply to
IYM

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