Costco tyres/front only

new tyres offer more grip , if your front tyres are better than your rear you risk the back end stepping out

Their company policy is very sensible, but they also have to take note of the customer's wishes and put them where you say. Obviously this would not apply if the result were to be illegal, ie if there were a mix of radial and cross ply(remember those?) tyres.

Steve

Or one size were different to the other or the wheel fitments different. I once rotated my tyres in this fashion and the car used to step out at every opportunity. Not only because of the tread but the front wore on the outer edges and when they were on the back provided very little grip when cornering (in the wet)

Costco would rather lose a sale than fit tyres in an inadvisable way and risk a law suit if there is a problem. Unless there is a good reason (like different sizes) Costco WILL NOT under any circs. fit the new tyres on the front. Drive home and change them to the front if you wish. My advice is put them to the back.

Mrcheerful

mrcheerful. ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Not this one again...

My car wears fronts out at approximately three times the rate of rears.

That, to me, implies it's using the fronts harder - and therefore the new tyres go on the front.

Mind you, since I fit my own tyres, they bloody well go where I tell them to go.

You CAN do as you like, just that Costco won't do as the OP asks.!!

As the major manufacturers have all decided that it is a good thing to fit new/best on the back, why argue? You still use up exactly the same number of tyres over the life of the vehicle.

Mrcheerful

The reason they do it is because it's nearly always the right thing to do, as oversteer requires more management than understeer, and front drive cars don't wear the rears very quickly.

If your car is front drive, it needs grip at the rear (especially as they tend to be rear light) to keep it in line with the front when cornering. Putting more grip at the front will allow you to turn in with more force than the rear can keep control off and cause it to step out of line at the back.

If your car is rear drive, it needs grip at the rear to keep it in line with the front when cornering and to get the power down. Putting more grip at the front will allow you to turn in with more force than the rear can keep control of and cause it to step out at the back, and if you're on the power at the time say hello to a spin.

As do most FWD cars.

Tyres rarely fail, so it's the relative grip that's important. And fitting the 'best' at the front can result in total loss of control in a skid through oversteer. Even when braking in a straight line. Of course I'm sure you're capable of catching it, but most drivers aren't.

You have a balancing machine as well?

I understand the argument, and of course, this has been done to death, but I have to say I've found all of my FWD cars much more prone to understeer rather than oversteer, with only one exception: if you do something daft like accelerate full-bore, turn into a greasy island/bend, and snap the throttle shut, the back can come round rather unexpectedly- but even then it's catchable unless you've been very very silly. Personally, I go with Adrian on this. I'd rather have the front go where I point it.

It's more of a problem on short wheelbase cars like golfs and less of a problem on something like a cavalier and it's heavily dependent on the tyres. I've had tyres better in the wet when they were on the legal limit than new budget tyres. It also depends how the car is set up, old cavs for example would go straight on no matter what in the rain.

The only time i have had lift-off oversteer was with a Golf. Doing that kind of thing with a Golf can have one wheel in the air...

Chris Bartram wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@proxy01.news.clara.net:

During normal road driving, I doubt that oversteer would ever be a problem with my big FWD Volvo.

If you take it to a track and do a couple of banzai laps, the front tyres will warm up and it will actually give pretty well balanced handling. But most of the time, it handles like a supertanker in a sea of treacle - the back end is quite safe!

Stu

My Rover 75, which I would consider a big front drive car, would oversteer quite readily on the wrong tyre choices. As would the S60.

Neither were fun cars when sideways, unlike the lighter rover 400 which was good fun, and the spacewagon.

Of course, the CLS I'm using at the moment (until tomorrow :( ) is completely neutral as I've never turned the ESP off...

Dave Plowman (News) ( snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Right. And - since the front is using the tyres three times as hard as the rear - the front needs the grip more.

The friend whose professional workshop I use the tyre machine at does, yes.

adder1969 ( snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

I've run 2cvs with new 145s on the front and knackered ancient teflon 125s on the back.

The handling's fairly neutral if you do that.

I done the same today; 2 new ones on the front, 1 year old ones remaining on the back. I concur with the 'three times as hard' comment. I suspect the tests conducted by various parties used really old shitty tyres on the back, and brand new own-brand (of the tyre company concerned) on the front, and showed it was a bad idea. We both know that.

So why not put the old ones on the front &wear them out?

Because they're happy slowly wearing out on the back. The front ones will wear out faster, at least in my experience, regardless of brand - so I'm happy to put the new decent ones on the front, and leave the mid-range brand on the back until they go, then replace.

If I could be arsed swapping to compare the feel of the car, I would.