new tyres on back?

(To be controversial)... Yes, if you are driving a car close to its limit of cornering ability, bearing in mind the road conditions. This should never happen on public roads. I will admit to having had rear end slides in my Mk1 Cortina even on dry roads, but that was when I was young and foolish, before my first accident. I even fitted air horns to that car. ;-) Old and worn tyres are more vulnerable to punctures, in my experience, and the result of a rapid tyre deflation or blow-out on a front wheel far out-weighs the risk of over-steering to disaster, unless you are a "boy racer".

In message , johannes writes

I understood the expression. I will probably downgrade my fronts when I replace the well worn rears, because the lack of tread depth has already necessitated a puncture repair caused by a short ST screw.

However you normally get fairly slow punctures from anything that penetrates the tread & it's pretty obvious when the airs leake out of a front tyre, on most modern cars you only find out the rears lost 3/4 of its pressure when you're going round the roundabout.

I'm far from convinced that deflation of a front tyre is more dangerous than deflation of a rear. It's the same old understeer/oversteer dichotomy.

And if worn tyres are more vulnerable, that becomes yet another reason to put them on the front. Unless you follow other cars too closely, you're unlikely to get a front wheel puncture. The vast majority of punctures happen on the rear, because the front wheel kicks the nail/screw/whatever up so that rear catches it pointy-end first.

John

Tips: Have you ever visited a DIY store and then had a low tire a couple of days later. Happened twice to me. The reason is the likelihood of odd screws and nails on the forecourt. Always look out for such items with an eagle eye.

In message , Duncan Wood writes

Both points acknowledged.

In message , johannes writes

The same goes for the Local Amenity Site. My last puncture was from a screw picked up there, and it was only by a rare piece of luck that I became aware of it the same day. I had reversed slowly out of a very awkward driveway into a narrow lane, and stopped to let a dog walker pass in front of the car before moving forward. He gestured to me to lower the window, and said: "Do you know you've got a screw in your front tyre"? It was only visible in the tread because I was on full lock...

I once discovered a low pressure 10 psi after work. Anyway, I pumped it up to 35 psi and drove home. The next morning it was 25 PSI. From these data I could calculate that I must have picked up the nail 2 days earlier. Sure enough, 2 days earlier I had visited B&Q.

In message , johannes writes

I bet that you always fill your fuel tank to the top, note the mileage, date, price and litres, and enter the data into the spreadsheet you designed, so that you know the exact mpg you get from each tank full, plus the overall mpg, cost per mile, miles per week, etc.

You don't? Ah well; you're not quite as sad as me then...

I do note down the mileage for each oil/filter change and airfilter/ sparkplug change. DIY Oil change rarely exceed 4000 motorway miles, about once per 3 months. Car has done 162,000 miles and still running sweet.

Next project is to flush out old antifreeze and replace. Not as easy as it seems. But important because it contain anti-corrosion additives which becomes less effective.