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Can I use different tyres for front and rear?


_BR1TT0N_

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As for people like slimjim up there, of course he has noticed a massive change in his cars dynamics - hes taken off tired budget tyres and fitted the best. Would he still be raving about the car if he had fitted RE050 to the back and PS2 to the front? Of course he would, its the upgrade from poor to high quality hes noticed, not the fact that all 4 tyres are the same.

 

So while I agree that matching tyres is a good idea, this claim that your car will spontaneously combust as soon as two different brands hit the rims is frankly rubbish. :)

I see what you are saying...

 

Not sure that I was going from budget to best... I was on Ultra Ssesentta's before. Which are not exactly budget.

 

but I do see what you are saying.

 

I also agree that putting 4 different tyres on the corners will NOT make your car burst into flames :D

Saying that, if there is a chance it might make it a higher chance of you loosing it, as one grips more than others and crashing THEN bursting into flames..... Why take the risk? :blink:

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I ran my 350z with falken on the rear and Pzero Rosso on the front and coming from Pzero Rosso all round it was f'in twitchy in all but the driest conditions. Falkens all round seemingly reduced the grip all round but balanced the car up so it was at least not as rear end happy as it was.

 

I have actually seen it all now, someone recommending buying cheaper, less grippy tyres so that all 4 match and the car is more "balanced", but wont stop or go round corners as quickly . :wacko:

Theres a vast difference between ditchfinders and Falkens though. I would whole heartedly recommend someone run 4 Falkens over 2 PZR and 2 Falkens, I've been there and the car was an arse to handle, even if it was just for a week or two until I had Falkens all round. I also said nothing about all out speed of the car, I said it had overall less grip. The feel of the car was greatly improved with the same tyres all round and thus confidence and cornering speed increased.

 

I think from now on we will just have to lock all these tyre threads as we wont ever agree ;)

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Mismatched Tyres will make the car very unpredictable! The rear will not respond the same as the fronts so you end up with a very oversteery car or very understeery car. One end well let go before the other.

Having 4 falkens all round is a better idea the 2 mismatched high performance tyres in terms of predictability. It's not about better grip or stopping distance etc. Of course falkens will let go before ps2's but at least all corners will respond the same and not throw you into a ditch at the first site of rain.

Docwra please chill mate you are being very aggressive with attitude in your response.

I run mixed on my show wheels purely because pzero rosso's weren't available for my fronts.

My track wheels are re040's and definitely feel much more predictable than running my mixed tyres. At least when you go to fast the front and rear give up at the same time and you start to get a little slide. If I had better on front then the car would appear to be very oversteery and vice versa for the rear.'

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I ran my 350z with falken on the rear and Pzero Rosso on the front and coming from Pzero Rosso all round it was f'in twitchy in all but the driest conditions. Falkens all round seemingly reduced the grip all round but balanced the car up so it was at least not as rear end happy as it was.

 

I have actually seen it all now, someone recommending buying cheaper, less grippy tyres so that all 4 match and the car is more "balanced", but wont stop or go round corners as quickly . :wacko:

Theres a vast difference between ditchfinders and Falkens though. I would whole heartedly recommend someone run 4 Falkens over 2 PZR and 2 Falkens, I've been there and the car was an arse to handle, even if it was just for a week or two until I had Falkens all round. I also said nothing about all out speed of the car, I said it had overall less grip. The feel of the car was greatly improved with the same tyres all round and thus confidence and cornering speed increased.

 

I think from now on we will just have to lock all these tyre threads as we wont ever agree ;)

 

 

Your man Ekona was describing FK452's as "budget" and saying no-one should ever consider running them on a car the other day ............ ;)

 

Im not disagreeing, its just this matched tyres thing is argued so vociferously on this forum that the advice is IMO bordering on being oversimplified, Im just trying to add a little balance. If I have more grip on the front axle than the rear Ill drive to it, and surely more overall grip is always a good thing, so following that through good mismatched tyres are better (for me at least) than bad matched ones.

 

Id actually say that unmatched wear (brand new front tyres, tired rears) is more of an issue, but thats a whole other argument. ;)

 

And that wasnt aggressive, I really cant see how you thought it was :shrug:

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Its not about all out grip levels, its about how tyres behave in different circumstances. On a dry road, all tyres will behave very similarly, but wet grip and break away is completely different between tyres (in my experience). My personal preference would be to have tyres all having the same break away and maybe less overall grip than to put grippier tyres on the front (or rear) which have different and less predictable break away. This would give me more confidence in what I feel and percieve to be the tyres breaking traction and better overall control of the car.

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Falkens aren't the best Tyres for the zed. If you put them on track they will overheat very quickly like the t1r's.

Every day use falkens will be fine. They are an upper budget tyre. The price tells the story. I agree that it is overhyped but if your not really a driving enthusiast (like, for talking sake my missus,and running mixed tyres) when one end let's go first people find it very hard to control as alot of the time it happens unexpectantly. That's what makes the issue more serious. When I had mixed Tyres on track I had abs going mental braking on a straight. I had to adjust my driving to suit, but alot of people do not realise it.

At the end of the day all four corners the same will be an advantage over mixed in terms of handling and predictability.

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Perhaps this is the other thing - Ive been drifting for about 6-7 years, so will push and exceed the limits of tyres more than most - Ive also had experience of a lot more brands of tyres than most due to eating them up within 10 minutes of putting them on :D

 

My driving style generally benefits from a very grippy front end and a slightly looser rear - the mere thought of understeer makes me shiver, but oversteer is part of the game - and as such I always run my best tyres on the front, its just the way I drive. :thumbs:

 

I had some Vrede Sessantas on my rear, after seeing the recommendations on here and TBH I didnt like them, I found they broke away without much warning, particularly in the wet - Ive swapped them for some SP9000's and prefer them on just about all counts. Thats not to say the SP's have more grip, just that they are more suited to what I expect from a tyre. :)

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The recent posts are very helpful. Given Neilp and docwra explore the limits on track etc and therefore want tyres suited for the purpose and as I found from my motorsport days in the past, race experience does give you a different level of confidence for the road. So when your car does move about unexpectedly, (or provoked ;) ) there is a better chance of knowing the reaction required and saving the day.

 

The same goes for Dan (Ekona) who I am not surprised has held off posting for fear of repeating himself (if nothing else :lol: ). As Chris'I says and others of us who have ZEDs for quite of few years know, you will be safer on 4 matched tyres for everyday driving - yes in the dry you can get away using all sorts of rubber but come our (usual) wet conditions the best quality set of tyres you can afford is really essential to help you get the best from the ZED and in relative safety.

 

So many times oil spills and the like have been blamed for accidents at roundabouts etc. But if we are honest we know that what are invairably going to be slippery conditions at such places is where you use the appropriate degree of caution before leaning onto the loud pedal. The point about having 4 matching tyres in such circumstances, and yes ideally with the same wear rate although the fact the fronts on the ZEDs last better, is that individual tyre construction will affect their break away limits - some do it progressively some give little warning - usually the low budget tyres.

 

Personally I found the 452 Falkens fine for typical road use and gave good grip in wet and dry. But I agree that on track in the dry they would be pretty hopeless, but in wet track conditions I'm told they are as good as anything. Quite different to using 888's that are great in the dry but require a great deal of respect in the wet .

 

I have no doubt the tyre debates will always feature and if you look back on here you will see many over the years. But hopefully those new to ZED ownership will be better informed when it comes to tyre choice because lets face it no one wants to go out an spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds on new rubber, or try and skimp on tyre purchase, only to find it has been money wasted and does not enable them to enjoy the full potential of their ZED.

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I have got to say, there have only been 3 points in my short (5/6 year) driving carear where i have had all matcing tyres and yes the car did handle better when they all matched but the zed currently has 3 different tyres (2 rears are the same and both fronts are different to the rears and each other), my ibiza has run many different combinations of tyres and some quite frankly well under budget tyres 'corsa' for exampl mixed on each corner and theres nothing wrong with how it drove, in the normal everyday driving ie not pushing i really dont see what the fuss is about with running mixed tyres.

 

however if i could im sure i would have matching tyres all around on the zed.

 

A Zed on mixed tyres is a whole different ball game to the front drivers you mention. You cannot possibly getting the full potential from your Zed and in the wet it is likley to be a death trap.

 

I've lost count of the number of times those who have been happy having mixed tyres and have then decided to bite the bullet and get a matching set suddenly find their ZED has levels of grip they had not believed possible. But you will not know until you try ;)

 

tbf when im going from the ibiza which drives like an oil tanker on ice then a zed with mixed tyres feels 1000000000000000000000million times better.

 

I do agree that when i have had 4 matching tyres on the ibiza it does drive better however, driving on normal roads around here both cars cope perfectly fine :) i dont tend to push the zed that much around corners having spent 3 years in the ibiza :lol: i dont believe a car can actually go around a corner.

 

as i mentioned though if i could afford to swap all 4 tyres on it then they would all be matching but its not really that high on my list of things to do tbh.

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I really couldn't give a rat's ass anymore what tyres people run on their cars. There's a shedload of posts on here explaining in technical detail and giving examples why mixing tyres is bad, and if people are too lazy to read them or want to completely ignore any kind of sensible reasoning behind, then that's up to them. I refuse to be drawn into pointless arguments with stupid people, it's a waste of everyone's time.

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I really couldn't give a rat's ass anymore what tyres people run on their cars. There's a shedload of posts on here explaining in technical detail and giving examples why mixing tyres is bad, and if people are too lazy to read them or want to completely ignore any kind of sensible reasoning behind, then that's up to them. I refuse to be drawn into pointless arguments with stupid people, it's a waste of everyone's time.

good man ..... you're right :thumbs:

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I really couldn't give a rat's ass anymore what tyres people run on their cars. There's a shedload of posts on here explaining in technical detail and giving examples why mixing tyres is bad, and if people are too lazy to read them or want to completely ignore any kind of sensible reasoning behind, then that's up to them. I refuse to be drawn into pointless arguments with stupid people, it's a waste of everyone's time.

 

:lol:

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I reckon we're about done to death on this one now. Its fairly obvious to anyone that mixing isn't as good as matched, cheap isn't as good as pricey......asking the question in the hope someone will say 'yeah its fine' just to try and vindicate not spending any money is never going get a positive response.

 

It's what your happy with personally at the end of the day but the only 'advice' you'll get from asking someone else is 'run matching tyres'.

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Again because people have different opinions that makes them wrong?

 

I really couldn't give a rat's ass anymore what tyres people run on their cars. There's a shedload of posts on here explaining in technical detail and giving examples why mixing tyres is bad, and if people are too lazy to read them or want to completely ignore any kind of sensible reasoning behind, then that's up to them. I refuse to be drawn into pointless arguments with stupid people, it's a waste of everyone's time.
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As this is done to death I am going to lock this. I feel a few people may be trying to goad others into arguements.

 

Look long and short of it is:

 

Yes you can run different tyres

 

No you shouldnt in the perfect world

 

In the real world the decision is up to you. Many have run mismatched tyres and we have seen many accidents because of it. Many have run mismatched tyres and are happy with them. Many have switched from mismatched tyres and say the car handles like it never has before.

 

IT IS YOUR DECISION - but dont come crying if you end up in a ditch.

 

/end

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