It is the one odd summer tyre put on the front that is completely wrong, complaining about the noise should not be the issue. Assuming the car carries a spare then Johannes should put the new Dunlop as the spare and get at least a pair of tyres on each end of the car (preferably all the same make and type), with the best ones on the rear, if he goes to a tyre shop with the qualifications of the fitters displayed on the walls then there is a chance the job will be done correctly and safely.
The Dunlop tyre is not just any low-rent tyre, and it hasn't caused me any problems apart from the noise. Single tyres are often replaced as a superior option to just repairing a puncture. There is so much that you "should" do in an ideal world, preferably not driving at all. But time, money are often the the bottlenecks, so you just use common sense and not wasting time and money.
I have an almost new Blue response on my rear non-axle, and also the 8 yo unused Bridgestone ER300 which was a spare until I put a well worn Blue Response in the boot. Grip under acceleration, braking and cornering is much better now.
The Blue Response (like the Goodyear Efficient Grip and newer Michelin Energy) is made to look good on the lab tests for the EU label. The compound is not as hard as earlier Michelin Energy etc, and the wet grip is better.
Is it a 'good idea' to use an 8 year old tyre, especially an unused one? I heard it said there is some need for a tyre to 'move' (as in flex) fairly regularly to keep the tyre supple?
Whilst fitting a towbar to the Meriva when gave it to us when Dad died
4 years ago I noticed quite extensive cracking and splitting between the treads on the rear tyres. They were dated 2004 so were the original tyres, fitted in the factory.
Even though they still had pretty good tread (for 10 years, 55,000 miles) I changed them anyway, simply because the potential consequences weren't worth the risk.
Same with the tyres on my 1/2 goods trailer. They might have only done
1000 miles since I last changed them (I built the trailer ~40 years ago) but the sidewalls were looking 'perished' and I was about to collect a motorbike with / for our daughter over a good few miles of motorway. Again, they may well have been 'legal' but I just didn't want to risk it (even for 100 quid or so a pair).
Cheers, T i m
p.s. Not quite the same thing but wasn't there a bad coach crash (is there ever a good one?) a while back where they had been running old (possibly ex spare) tyres, one of which had failed and 3 people died?
It won't, but I sometimes wonder how important that might be.
I always replace tyres in axle pairs, never buy names I don't recognise, and replace them as soon as possible after the tread depth is below three mm.
Plenty of folk I know have a much more casual attitude; they buy whatever the tyre fitter says is the cheapest, only replace tyres when an MOT failure is likely, and check pressures when one is visually soft. One ex-mechanic almost exclusively uses part-worns purchased from a breakers!
They don't have a higher rate of accidents than me, or suffer a greater number of punctures.
I wouldn't advocate their way - I try to persuade them otherwise - but nonetheless they seem to be in the majority.
The other point to consider is that although your tyres might be the same each side, at any given time the road surface may not be, especially with the mess the roads are in now.
If your just tatting about in the dry true its unlikely to be much of an issue however once you start traveling on faster roads higher speeds wet weather it can make all the difference.
Years ago i saw a BMW spin out of control on the motorway up near Carlisle, fortunately no one was hurt but he did bounce it off the central barrier, when you looked at the car you could see different boots on different feet.
That certainly seemed it might be the case with someone I know who recently wrote off his 5 series when it spun out on the straight in the wet. Turns out he had put a set of 4 tyres on not long ago but the rears were lacking tread for some reason? ;-)
As has been mentioned elsewhere, if you are just pootling about in a big city (like London) where you rarely reach 30 mph, let alone go any faster it probably doesn't make a lot of difference (most of the time).
+1
Daughter bought her Connect from a mobile mechanic and the (fairly new) front tyres weren't up to the recommended load rating. Now, 'legally', because of the rating of the van it wasn't *required* to have specific load rating tyres, the only problem would be if at any time the tyre became overloaded, questionably less chance of that happening on the front (but not impossible) than had they been on the back. But what if she had to swap the wheels round whilst the van was loaded and *then* had an accident or got pulled by VOSA (or whoever). So, she bought a set of 5 branded tyres of the correct 'recommended' rating, 'because'.
But it's like playing the Lottery isn't it? Id say my experience of what I do and what 'most / many others' do (and 'get away with'?) is very similar but I'd no sooner fit a 'part worn' tyre than I would a second hand condom. Now, when the Astra was written off (whilst parked) we were able to retain the fairly new front tyres because they were the exact same size, make and model as the tyres on Daughters Corsa. So, technically they were also 'part worn' / 'second hand' but with a known history.
Agreed.
That's a good point, especially say if braking hard in the wet.
I treat tyres like insurance. You don't really want to get involved in them but they are important and could save it all ending in tears if it all goes wrong so get something worth having. ;-)
I've always bought half decent tyres, usually in axle pairs. I have occasionally carefully experimented to see if they're worse at the limit or when temps are around freezing. I have come to the conclusion that there's nothing significant in it and the limits of a half-decent tyre in less than optimal conditions are still happily above what's needed if the driver is awake and not a ham fisted/footed idiot. Different treads left to right might be important in absolute extremis but doesn't seem to make any odds.
Recently tho I've had the joy of aquiring a pair of Runways that came with a set of alloys I bought. They sit on the back of my RWD cooking diesel. In the dry they seem very good; me and a friend were both quite impressed when we gave them some stick. However, a couple of times in the limited wet we've had lately, they seem to be utterly dire. Twice the back has stepped out unexpectedly, once was with a bit of heavy foot (but nothing a, say, P6000 would have been troubled by) and, if I'd wanted, I probably could have kept it sliding until I reached the Atlantic.
So unmatched tyres worry my way less than crap ones!
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