[oldmxdog61u]

Newbie with 2000 insight, already affectionitely called "the mouse". 63,000 miles on car, super clean, runs great etc etc. Question-
I was looking at replacing tires eventually, and was wondering about the wisdom of breaking up the purchase into replace front, then replace rear later (cash flow solution). Any disagreements and why? Also, I read the threads on which tire (stock sounds best), although I wouldnt mind hearin g options as the firestone dealer is mighty proud of them, even though he matched tire rack pricing, there is still mounting, stems, waste, and road hazard warranty. I am looking at $362 out the door for four. What have you paid? What/where did you go? Thanks. I love this little car. (59 mpg avg per tank, 50% country, 50% stop n go traffic, 600 miles per week).

 

[Dougie]

Many retail dealers will match the Tire Rack online price if you bring in a printout.

There's nothing wrong with splitting a tire purchase, but a general rule is to always have the best tires on the rear, to maintain understeer even in slippery conditions. Even on front wheel drive cars.

 

[james]

I found that the front tires seem to wear faster than the rear, anyway. I bought mine with about 50K miles on it. Tires were in good condition, but I don't know if they were original replacements with some miles on them.

I had to replace the front for wear at about 85K (and of course had one of the new ones blow out on a road hazard a couple of weeks later :-(), but the rear ones still have good tread at a bit over 100K.

 

[bagwell]

Many retail dealers will match the Tire Rack online price if you bring in a printout.

There's nothing wrong with splitting a tire purchase, but a general rule is to always have the best tires on the rear, to maintain understeer even in slippery conditions. Even on front wheel drive cars.

I always do the opposite, replace the fronts and move the crappy tires to the back. fronts steer the car, power it and do 90% of the stopping.

 

[Dougie]

Yes, but production cars are always made so that they have understeer when at the limits of traction. (Except old VWs and Porsches!) In that hopefully rare case when you need to make a sudden manouver to avoid a dog or basketball or semi-trailer truck, poor tires on the back and good ones on the front encourage the car to spin, which is not what you want...

 

[Insightful Trekker]

Accurate point Dougie, But I'd defer any further qualification to Guillermo's insights.

However, in "emergency" manuvering situations should it be an advantage to have better steering control vs. such a loss due to hydroplaning etc. its not clear that one scheme is better than another.

HTH!

 

[Dougie]

It's not worth an argument here, but I do think that readers who aren't familiar with the pros and cons should understand that it's pretty well accepted in the tire business that the new tires always go on the rear.

For example,
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/ ... ?techid=52
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understeer

I would not want to hear about an Insight off in the woods because of not following the widely understood recommendation on new tire placement...

 

[Insightful Trekker]

Agreed. No argument from me. But just like the phrase YMMV there are "other" conditions where such a difference is less a factor. We could "paint" different scenarios all day.

The Insight is a _prime_ candidate for the dreaded oversteer condition. And the difference in axle length front :arrow: rear further adds handling difficulty to the mix.

Sincerely,

 

[Guillermo]

Be very careful putting worn or old (therefore hard) tires in the rear.
I would suggest rotating the 4 tires AT LEAST once per year.
Or if you are lazy, put the new tires in the rear and when the fronts wear out move them to the front and put new ones in the rear again.
Don't let this happen to you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvOg2ydEY7Q

 

[james]

Yet I see that rotating radial tires (which is essentially all tires these days) is recommended against. I thought that's because they develop a preferred direction of rotation.

For myself, I've always thought that if one is wearing faster than the rest, I'd want to know about it so I could fix the problem, not rotate tires to hide it.

 

[Guillermo]

I suggest rotating the tires front to back not diagonally or side to side.
So the tires will rotate the same direction after moving them.
In my case all the summer and winter tires I buy are directional anyways.
In a front wheel drive car it's completely normal and expected that the front tires will wear twice as fast as the rears.

 

[oldmxdog61u]

fwiw-
went with the factory bridgestones replacing the prior owners federals. Results-
quiter ride, better handling (sticks), and mpg increased by about 8mpg.

Nice!