Tire change recommendation

In snowy regions I recommend the Ecopia EP422 but if you didn't have trouble with the Integrity (horrible in wet weather) then you could get away with the Energy Saver A/S. unfortunately, tires with much better handling will bring down fuel economy. With higher air pressure, the Energy Saver A/S handles fine and is the most efficient tire in NA.

 

My experience with Costco is that they don't do alignments.

 

Costco is great except they don't do alignments.

They also take the $70 rebate off your final bill instead of charging you full price then making you apply for the rebate.

 

This subject has been brought several times in various places. The answer is yes, you can mix compressed air and nitrogen. However, when you do that you are diluting the nitrogen therefore eliminating the purpose of the nitrogen in the first place.

Take a look at the following link for more information.

Can You Mix Air And Nitrogen In Tires? | Nitronomics

Ron

 

If your rear tires a good yet, why not just get two new for the front? H

 

While getting a set of Michelin Defender XTs installed at Costco, I was surprised to see a recommendation by Goodyear on the counter. They were recommending that if one is only installing a pair of new tires (not a complete set), that the newer tires should always go on the rear, regardless if the car was front or rear wheel drive. At first I was a little confused as my previous impression was that the front wheels do all the steering and are also responsible for the majority on one's braking ability. So I did a little research and found a nice explanation at TireRack regarding this recommendation in their Tire Tech Information/General Tire Information section under an article titled: Where to Install a New Pair of Tires. Unfortunately haven't posted enough articles to allow me to provide a link, but here are a few excerpts:

New tires on the rear axle help the driver more easily maintain control on wet roads since deeper treaded tires are better at resisting hydroplaning.

If the front tires have significantly less tread depth than the rear tires, the front tires will begin to hydroplane and lose traction on wet roads before the rear tires. While this will cause the vehicle to understeer (the vehicle wants to continue driving straight ahead), understeer is relatively easy to control because releasing the gas pedal will slow the vehicle and help the driver maintain control.
However, if the front tires have significantly more tread depth than the rear tires, the rear tires will begin to hydroplane and lose traction on wet roads before the fronts. This will cause the vehicle to oversteer (the vehicle will want to spin). Oversteer is far more difficult to control and in addition to the initial distress felt when the rear of the car starts sliding, quickly releasing the gas pedal in an attempt to slow down may actually make it more difficult for the driver to regain control, possibly causing a complete spinout.

So while one should ideally get a full set of new tires, if you can only afford a pair or if you feel that there is enough tread left on a pair (common when one doesn't rotate the tires too often), the older pair should be mounted on the front and the newer pair on the rear. But bear in mind if you only install a new pair of tires, you will never been able to rotate your tires but will be stuck with a mismatched set and the requirement of having to replace one pair at a time as the older pair wears out.

 

No worries. We've battled this out in numerous threads on PC. New tires (or ones with the most tread) always ton on the rear. Period!

 

There is a difficulty with the above, I agree splitting hairs. If you put a full set of tyres on a front wheel drive car in theory you can never rotate them. The fronts will always ware faster and have less tread than the rears. Rotating them will break the rule of always having the best tyres on the rear. This may only be 1/32 in 5,000 miles but it still breaks the rule.

John (Britprius)

 

Aye, we are splitting hairs. Maybe the rule should state a minimum difference in tread depth or we could go further and discuss weather conditions. In most of California we receive no precipitation from June through October so it may be safe to perform a rotation that puts the less treaded tires on the rear during this time to promote even wear. That being said, the spirit of the idea is that if you have two sets of tires with greatly differing tread depths then the ones with the most tread go in the rear and yes you will lose the ability to rotate them unless weather conditions dictate otherwise.

 

I agree my comments were meant to be more thought provoking than saying it should not be done.

When I first started driving I had access to a bus driver training scid pan with chief instructor "brother in law" on which I spent many hours. Even drove London type double decker buses on there, "do not believe you have double deckers in the US".

This taught me a lot about skid control, the hardest thing to learn was not to brake during a skid. Went on to rally and race the original Mini's and these were set up for a loose rear end "oversteer" partly because the brakes were so poor the best way to slow the car down was to slide it sideways. Best tyres were always on the front. How times change.

John (Britprius)

 

I still prefer the better tread up front, especially during the winter. FWD. Mind you I drive at the lower side of the speed limit! Actually much slower . So really not much to worry about. H​

 

The front tires will wear faster. Put the new tires on the back and they'll never catch up to the front for wear.

 

The rear tires will catch up to the front..... During severe oversteer due to hydroplaning.

 

Your bang on with that comment F8L . H

 

As an exercise in reductio ad absurdum, one should never rotate the tires on a FWD drive car because the front's wear faster, so each time you rotate the tires the best tires end up on the front.