FWD Tires

Stinky

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I'm quite upset w/Discounttire at the moment.

I have a HarborFreight manual tire changer and I change my tires all the time and one of the reasons is that I'm 20 minutes from town and I don't like waiting an hour to get my stuff done at Discount. They've been my shop for some time....mostly cuz they are the cheapest.

Today, I put my knobby snow tires on my wife's car for the winter (a pair, on the front). Then, I went to Discount to get them balanced. The guy says, OK, but we'll have to put them on the back. "It's not safe to put them on the front." It slipped out...."Dumbest thing that I've ever heard." I got that from an old supervisor. I promptly left.

I have a tire that I've already paid for waiting for me...It is $330 after everything....tis a 245/75 BFG K03....one tire. I've getting a refund tomorrow. I ordered one from Walmart when I got my tires balanced 30 minutes later.

Discount is of the impression that when you put new tires on a FWD that they have to go on the back as cars are prone to excessively over-steer and go into a slide as the rear tires need more traction than the front ones when going around a curve.

All I know is that all the braking, starting, hydroplaning is on the front and that most of the time the front needs more tread. What do you think about where the best tires should go on a FWD car?
 
Newer tires have less heat cycles, so more grip. They won't work on cars with less than the minimum tread depth, so hydroplaning isn't really a concern. Putting new tires on the front means the rears, which might be old and hard, will have less grip than the fronts. Since idiots who find themselves going too fast in a corner, or approached with an emergency decision, tend to slam on the fucking brakes, this leads to cars oversteering and spinning out of control into busloads of nuns.

It's the same reason why every fucking car in the world (except specifically designed track cars) plows like a goddamned tractor from the factory. Understeer is considered "safe" according to liability morons who are in fear of everyday morons who are insufficiently trained on how to drive. For people who are properly trained, an oversteering car is easier to deal with than an understeering car since you have more options available. But for morons, grinding the front tires off is apparently better.

Just swap them when you get home. Walmart will probably go this way as well since they all probably have the same insurance company, or the insurance companies analyze risk the same way.
 
I think it all goes back to the Ford/Firestone tire disaster. New tires on the back. A blowout on the front is more "manageable" than one on the rear.
 
My experience with Discount Tire stores in Vista is that they put the new tires on the Drive axles (Civic: front, Integra: front, 4runner: rear, Tundra: rear) . I've never seen them do it any different.

Very odd.
 
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