Goddam Kwikfit

Ok. But you're going against all informed opinion.;-)

Until the car spins - and yes, I have experienced this on a FWD. Near impossible to catch - or rather I couldn't. Despite being used to hanging the tail out on a RWD.

But loss of grip at the rear might happen on greasy roads, etc, and to the unwary. Understeer is often easily 'cured' by backing off - the natural reaction. But if this leads to severe oversteer through worn tyres the results can be fatal - especially to one used to a car that only ever understeers under 'normal' conditions.

Well, I'll leave the 'informed opinion' to others then. I will go by logic and personal experience. Anyway, skids don't _happen_, they're _caused_ and there is only one cause, the driver. I learned the hard way at first and then practiced on skid pans and snowy car-parks (whenever possible). These days I am rather more aware of what the car feels like when it's getting close to letting go.

This happened to my dad. When he went back in the afternoon they told him they had balanced them correctly but would check again. He demanded to watch. After much faffing about turned out they didn't even have the correct tool there to fit his wheels onto the machine or whatever, and they had to call in the mobile truck to get the tool.

More often than not, it is exagerated by backing off, because engine braking can cause the wheels to lock, and if it doesn't, it can cause lift off oversteer.

With an FWD car, the better solution is to steer further into it slightly, and keep the power on, it will pull itself back into line.

In message , Sleeker GT Phwoar writes

Putting more lock on when the front wheels are slipping is the last thing you want to do. They will grip less, and if you do lift off, you'll not be able to wind the lock off fast enough when they do grip, and you'll spin. The best thing to do is to lift off *enough*,

I don't really see losing grip as a problem. I quite regularly lock up or spin tyres and so what? The car stays in control if you know your stuff well enough and the only bit you change is that there is no more uncertainty about the road conditions (IOW you can't be caught out by a poor road surface as you already pushed it into a skid and know where that is).

Then you have the question, which end is least dangerous?

This is a *big* question.

I can control the car much more easily with the back sliding because, put simply, all I need to do is continue steering properly. If the problem was using too much power for the grip on the back then I can take it a bit steadier.

But the downside is that when the back spins out, there is so much more likelihood of collecting something coming the other way.

Contrastingly, when I emergency brake, losing grip at the front means longer stopping distances and unpredictable movements, e.g. the steering won't work when the front tyres are locked up. This is potentially more dangerous (you don't tend to brake real hard or make violent steering moves when you are taking things steady.)

So I don't bother that much, lose both ends regularly and learn how to deal with that and it stops being an issue.

Legislation is all very well and the choice of where to put the old / new pair of tyres ought to consist of either a mandatory decision, an informed driver decision, or a tyre fitting recommendation. I don't care either way, for myself. Not that the older tyres grip worse. AFAIK the only difference is in the wet.

If it's sliding, you want to open the steering, back off a bit and try to pick up the grip again. If it's just understeering, wind a bit more on and floor it can work!

Stuffs yer tyres, though...

My old Skoda favorit was like that. Thought the shocks were shagged, so swapped them for some fixed rate club motorsport ones. Turns out, although legal, they were s**te (passed 2 MOTs). On roundabouts in second gear, if you accelerated off, the front would go (with 56BHP). Had to keep your toe in and steer into it further.

Must have looking quite frightening from the outside. Hard to tell what was really happening, as the stronger shocks, bucket seats and harnesses meant there was little roll and you were locked in very tightly Ended up selling the car before it needed tyres, but it did have a habit, on damp roads, of standing on the spot spinning the tyres, if you tried to make quick jump from a standing start into a gap on a roundabout.

If your fleet management think that running mismatched tyres is acceptable then I doubt you'll have much luck.

I was in this situation and I ended up optiing out of the company cars, taking car allowance and running my own car for work. Much safer (though probably more expensive)

In article , "i didnt say that" > Metros don't have a chassis.

Called subframes. But you can bend those too by jacking in the wrong place.