New Tires: Back or Front?

Note that the recomendations are consistent if one allows for front wheel vs rear wheel drive

cheers

ps I put my two new tires on the rear

Hi,

I doubt this recommendation to put new tires on front actually comes from Mercedes. Must be a personal opinion.

I guess you can find recommendations both ways but my personal view is strongly suggesting "better tires to the back". I too had recently two tires changed and specifically asked if my Michelin dealer if he agreed that the new tires should go to the back, and he certainly did agree.

This is actually good for an MB because the rear tires normally wear more, after a while you can change the better tires from the front to the back which allows even ware. But this is not the real argument to use better tires at the back.

The reason to put better tires to the back is that this setup allows better car handling! I guess people assume that car handling comes from front tire grip, as long as your front tires have grip, you can handle the car but this is not that simple. If the front loses grip, the car tends to go straight, which is not always good but most often, you should always have a bit of time to allow front grip reappear. But if you lose rear grip, the car may quickly turn without a chance to compensate for that by turning front wheels.

Losing grip on back tires can be from water on the road (especially on worn roads) or ice and snow. To be able to handle the car with your steering wheel, you do need some grip at the back, otherwise it doesn't work.

Meanwhile had a look at the W221 S-class owners manual (unfortunately not my own but the manual on the MB web), it says: "Fit new tyres on the front wheels first if tyres of the same size are required on the front and rear wheels".

So I guess MB does recommend new tires to the front. I would still not do that on my MB.

Hm. Well, aren't all Mercedes modesl rear wheel drive? Except for the 4-Matics and SUVs.

[...]

My wagon isn't a 4-matic but where would two new tires go then? Still to the back?

Just curious,

Des

I think it's 'old school', others I've asked say new tires to the front, as well; my husband said "That's what my father always told me."

Well, what do you expect? They can't even spell 'tires' correctly. ;-)

I'm relieved to know that Herb the Mercedes Man knew what he was talking about, anyway.

Thanks for your posts.

~Des

(Nice Name.)

What I meant in short is that consistency seems to exist if one requires the new tyres to go onto the undriven wheels. With 4 wheel drives we are likely beginning to split hairs

cheers

I was always under the understanding that the purpose for putting the newer tires on the front was that the older tires were more likely to fail sooner and if a tires blows out while driving, that it is better for it to NOT be on the steering end of the car, so you can more safely pull off the road. If a drive tire goes your car will still be hard to handle, but not near as much as if a steering tire goes out!

Aha. Here we go. Well, the tire service man said exactly the opposite. He gave an example of a blowout and said, specifically, that the tire manufacturers would rather have a blowout on the front.

~Des

"The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it." ~Dudley Moore

FROM A MERCEDES DEALER: new tires go on the front!!!!!!!!! It is true, it is in the owners manual. (so the dealer just told me)

Hey, this was already posted, a Mercedes dealer and the manual says so, but the group, myself at least would want to know why, some good arguments supporting this view? The majority of opinions, some with personal experience claim that better car handling is not one.

Funny, Goodyear says the rear axle

There's also a good article at Tire Rack that explains why new tires should go on the rear axle (to increase vehicle control in case of hydroplaning). Josh