Agreed, the front will go where you point it. The back will follow the front provided they haven't lost grip, if they have all bets are off as to where the thing will go.
I reckon that new tyres on the front and old ones on the back was a contributary factor to the destruction of my old Mondeo. That was a front wheel drive rather than 4 wheel of course.
[slight digression] Ice Road Truckers last night: a guy towing three huge steel sleds with a tractor-trailer combo. He had to be pushed to start off, and, once moving, commented that stopping might be a bit more 'interesting' than he'd like.
I can't work out whether to admire their bravery or not. Some of them are clearly certifiable.
On or around Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:38:08 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:
well, I had it doing ABS things on this one slope. The book says that if it loses grip it lets it speed up a bit and tries again.
what I don't know is what happens if you're in 1-L and not enough grip. If it was really clever, it'd give it a bit of throttle, same as a proper off-road driver would, to try to re-establish traction. But I don't think it does.
Point being that if you're on slippery stuff and you want to let HDC do the work, you need to be in a higher gear so it gets a chance to, I think. BICBW. The manual is (doubtless deliberately) vague on this point, and until DIIs get *really* cheap, I'm not inclined to try pushing the limits.
On or around Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:45:30 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:
My thesis is that the front wheels of a 4x4 do the most work: they do all the steering, and better than half the braking and approximately half the driving, TC excepted.
Ergo, I have the decent tyres on the front, given a choice. I'd rather it breaks away at the back if it's going to, although I regard that as poor driving anyway, unless provoked deliberately: if I end up with it sliding unexpectedly, I regard it as poor reading of the conditions.
But you've got more hope of recovering a loss of grip if you still have steering control.
Just my 0.02 euro. On FWD cars, I ALWAYS have decent/best tyres on the front - the front end of such a motor does almost all the work, and losing grip means you lose both traction *and* steering and most of your braking. Look at the type and size of brakes on a typical car (not a 4x4), it's easy to see where all the grip needs to be.
So sorry, don't buy "best on the back" except for hill-climbing in a RWD or
4WD, and that's a special case.I'd be interested in your reasoning for the mondeo thing, if you'd care to reprise the situation for us forgetful types.
Austin,
I also was brought up in the 1960s to put the newer tyres on the front, particularly on FWD vehicles so they had the best traction when starting on hills, but am now persuaded that fitting them to the rear is by far the safer option, particularly under braking in the wet, when the rears are the more prone to locking up. I did see some footage on television a few years ago showing the difference when braking in the wet, and it was the vehicle with the newer tyres on the front that consistently locked up at the rear and spun out of control.
"There is some dispute over the fitting of a pair of new tyres to a car. Simple logic suggests that the car needs most traction at the drive axle. In some cases that would be true, for instance if you were constantly driving in muddy conditions and needed the grip to keep you moving. However, irrespective of the vehicle, front or rear wheel drive, or even 4x4, the typical vehicle is designed to understeer in skid conditions. That is, it ploughs forwards.Generally, backing off the power and the brakes will recover the vehicle from the skid, though not always.
By putting the grippier tyres on a front wheel drive car, it increases grip at the front, but equally increases the difference in traction/ grip between the front and the rear tyres, so the rear tyres lose grip early and as a consequence the car is at risk of going into oversteer. For the average motorist oversteer usually means ending up rear end first into the field (if they are lucky). That argument can also apply to rear wheel drive vehicles, it is not about getting the power down on the tarmac, it is about keeping the rear end of the car in contact with the road.
With four wheel drive vehicles, rotation of tyres is much more important and all four tyres, ideally, should be replaced at the same time. So, location should not be an issue. If it is, the same rule applies, newer tyres to the rear. "
Simon
Yep, though I managed to end front wards into the wall before that flipped me over in the Mondeo. But only after the back end had gone oversteer left, bought back, oversteer right, bought back, oversteer left, bought back, gave up. The back end was just not in proper contact with the road and was going where it wanted to not where it should, the front was fine that was going where I pointed it.
Two good descriptions of why its important to have the best tyres on the back. The fact is, you can exert some control of the front via the steering. There is little you can do to influence the rear once it looses grip.
Mike
A few years ago I won the 1/10th on-road touring car championship (Radio Control Car Racing) using soft, sticky, grippy tyres on the rear and mediochre to crap tyres on the front, using a front wheel drive, Mondeo bodied car.
In numerous tests (and races) the good tyres on the rear worked well every time for FWD ... if you skid with fwd you invariably oversteer and slide at the front until there's grip, then you carry on turning the same way. Crap tyres on rear, you spin out or get grip but aren't turning the right way 'cos you've tried to steer into the skid !
Just a FYI ... ;)
Totally other way round with my 4wd and RWD racers ... good tyres on the rear always worked better!!
I know it's not the same thing at all, but I'd say from experience that it mimics pretty damn closely what happens on-road.
A big pink elephant called Gerald, blasted talkative elephant.
Problem is there's no real clear-cut consensus, and if it was clear-cut there would be, and a study that looks into individual situations, e.g. braking on water, tells you how it behaves when braking on water, but as you can't predict the future you don't know if that's what's going to happen to you. If there was a setup that was clearly always better in pretty much all situation then there'd be a clear consensus. Maybe one day there will be but in the meantime not really worth fussing about it.
No clear cut consensus? Find me a website that says front is best.
Mike
What I mean is that there's no consensus that new tyres on the rear is always best, there's lots of websites that say it's probably best to put new tyres on the rear, but the differences aren't so great as to make it vital and wouldn't really make much of a difference compared to other variables in each accident. It's not a black-and-white thing, e.g. a set of worn wet-weather tyres on the rear may well perform better than a set of new dry-weather tyres, the wear rates will make a big difference such as new tyres mixed with worn but still good tyres versus new tyres mixed with almost bald tyres and so on. Most of the sites I've seen paint it as a simple, stark choice, and it just isn't.
On or around Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:10:59 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:
but IIRC you were on ice, so all bets were off anyway. On ice, f*ck-all grips worth a light except studded tyres.
I know the theory about best tyres on the back. I just don't agree with it. I don't, either, agree with making everything understeer by default.
But then I'm an old git and learned to drive on rear-wheel drive cars. I've had FWD though, and IME the back tyres do next-to-sod-all bar for stopping the back end dragging on the road. I'll go with an option that means I'm most likely still to have brakes, power and steering input over one that loses all those in 1 go.
On or around Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:54:33 -0000, "Muddymike" enlightened us thusly:
There's little you can do to steer, if the crappy tyres on the front lose grip first...
best answer is decent tyres all round, of course - which is why I tend to change 4x4 ones as a set of 4.
On or around Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:03:37 -0000, "Muddymike" enlightened us thusly:
provided, of course, that you hit the water in a straight line.
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