Can I put 2 new AT's on the front & keep the MT's on the b

[Madcowz]

Hi,

I need two new tyres as my existing MT's are old and two of them failed the MOT. I no longer need anything quite as rugged as the MT's so was thinking of buying some AT's instead. Can I put two of these on the front and keep the old MT's on the back?

Obviously they would be the same size 265/75

Also, General Grabbers are £23 cheaper than BF Goodrich. Is this a saving worth making?

Thanks.

[SPendrey]

Sure, absolutely nothing stopping you doing that. In terms of price, I can't help you... there are so many "my tires lasted xx,000 miles" comments online that there is no consensus.

[Aragorn]

My advice is to always put the better tyres on the rear of the car.

With nice grippy tyres on the front, and worn less grippy ones on the back, the vehicle is more likely to oversteer, often without any warning, because all the steering feel is thru the front tyres, which have loads of grip.

With the poorer tyres up front, you can feel the lack of grip, drive accordingly, and know the cars not going to do anything unexpected!

[pat_pending]

My advice is to always put the better tyres on the rear of the car.

With nice grippy tyres on the front, and worn less grippy ones on the back, the vehicle is more likely to oversteer, often without any warning, because all the steering feel is thru the front tyres, which have loads of grip.

With the poorer tyres up front, you can feel the lack of grip, drive accordingly, and know the cars not going to do anything unexpected!

This is exactly what tyre manufactures recomend, and for those reasons.

Most people seem to hold the incorrect view that the best should go on the steered axle and refuse to be told otherwise.

[Aragorn]

Yeh a while ago the missus went to have some new tyres put on her car, and i told her specifically to get the garage to move the rear wheels to the front, and to fit the new tyres to the ex-front wheels and put them on the back.

The garage were adamant that the new tyres should go on the front because it was a front wheel drive car. Eventually she phoned me and i told the bloke over the phone i wanted the new tyres on the rear and he reluctantly did it with lots of grumbling and moaning.

I've had two mates who've been bitten with the "better tyres on the front", with them managing to spin their cars out on wet roundabouts, although one of the cases was quite interesting. He'd bought some wheels from ebay and come to mine to have them fitted. Two tyres were pretty new, perhaps 6-7mm tread, and two were very nearly done ~2mm, so we duly fitted the newer ones to the back and he went on his way, only to wipe the car out on the first damp roundabout he tried to take in a spirited manner, the back end stepping out with no warning and sending him into a 180 spin. On investigation we discovered that the nearly-new tyres were some hopeless unheard of brand, and the worn out tyres were some decent premium brand like continental/michelin. The worn out premium tyres had significantly more grip than the new cheapies, and when we swapped the cheapies onto the front of the car for testing he was horrified at how little grip they had, now being able to feel it thru the steering!

[Retroanaconda]

Agree with the above.

In some situations the opposite is desirable though. For example I had two new tyres put on one of the vans at work the other day, we put them on the front wheels as the van is front wheel drive and we want to maximise traction on muddy/wet/snowy forest roads. However it's slightly different to normal road driving as the tyres will almost certainly not survive long enough to actually wear out, instead succumbing to punctures/de-lamination well before then.

[smokinv8]

Interesting, as I have always thought that the "better" tyres should be placed on the driven wheels giving better traction.

[Diff]

Hi,

I need two new tyres as my existing MT's are old and two of them failed the MOT. I no longer need anything quite as rugged as the MT's so was thinking of buying some AT's instead. Can I put two of these on the front and keep the old MT's on the back?

Obviously they would be the same size 265/75

Also, General Grabbers are £23 cheaper than BF Goodrich. Is this a saving worth making?

Thanks.

Yes, you can, BUT in an ideal world you shouldn't.

This is because you are not just considering a new pair of tyres, you are considering a very different tread pattern.

This could cause unpredictable behaviour and handling if you had to perform an emergency manoevre of some sort. Similarly, tyre sizes are for guidance and are approximately the same, but actual sizes can be quite different between different makes as well as between ATs and MTs.

In an ideal world a Land Rover should be fitted with 4 identical tyres.

It may handle fine, it might not.

Regards, Diff.

[western]

ran my 110 with a pair of AT's on the rear for a few months until funds allowed 4 new MT's to be obtained.

[GW8IZR]

I drove a discovery with bfg muds on the back and remoulded ATs on the front - it reminded me of driving my v8 series 1 on SATs :-)

Drive very carefully remembering the bad handling characteristics of the tyres and all will be well - but beware if you forget and get caught out by an unexpected event on the road......

[Josh NZ]

My stage 1 v8 has BFG MUDs on the back and ATs on the front. Handles perfectly fine, nothing unpredictable at highway speeds and above! Fantastic in the wet too

[GW8IZR]

There we go then. Proof it will be ok or not ;-)

[Snagger]

For tyres of similar type but differing age/condition, the older tyres should always go on the front, regardless of drive type, to reduce over-steer. For differing tyre types, always put those with the best road holding on the rear, again for the same reasons. So, make absolutely sure that the new ATs go on the back and the old MTs on the front. It'll give less braking than the other way around (due to to the weight transfer away from the ATs to the MTs), but will give much safer handling when cornering. That said, it's safest to have all tyres matched, and you should try to change the other MTs as soon as you can (they're much better on wet or wintry roads anyway).

[tacr2man]

Mixing BFG Mt if high load range , with other brands of tyre can cause very strange handling in some cases so be careful Hi had put two on a 130 , and still had the oe michelin on the other end , it was pulling a trailer I had to go to do recovery, it became almost undriveable at 40mph . Had to go back and get other towing vehicle .

[Madcowz]

Thanks for all the replies. Only just spotted them as the forum didn't ping me an email so I've now followed the thread.

Interesting about the new tyres on the back. I always assumed they should go on the front so something new learnt today!

I've read that the difference in diameter between the tyres can cause issues for the diffs even though they will all be 265/75. It's been mentioned that the MT's tread would have worn and be smaller than the new AT's. Or is this made up nonsense?

[Aragorn]

The diffs job is specifically to take up those differences!

If theres a large difference, say 29" tyres on the front and 31" tyres on the rear, then sure, you'll overwork the diff and probably break it, but the few % difference from new and old tyres of the same size isnt a problem!

[Madcowz]

Thanks Aragorn. That's what I thought and I had planned to buy just the two and run like that until the other tyres had to go but a tyre company (no surprise) said I would need to replace all 4 at once.

[Snagger]

Thanks Aragorn. That's what I thought and I had planned to buy just the two and run like that until the other tyres had to go but a tyre company (no surprise) said I would need to replace all 4 at once.

Aragorn is absolutely right, and to be fair, the tyre company's advice is good, even though they should have said you would be prudent, well advised, safer and so on, rather than that you must replace them all. It's technically OK to mix different tyres front to rear and if driven accordingly, should be alright. How about taking the plunge and either selling the MTs or using them as spares? As a spare, their being different would pose no problem as long as you kept the speed down if you had to use them, just like drivers of euroboxes are supposed to do with space savers...

[Madcowz]

Thanks Snagger,

I've got a set of slicks on alloys that are on the car just now but will be sold along with the 20mm spacers. They will be replaced with my steel wheels (newly shotblasted and powder coated) and the existing MT's with 2 new AT's

I don't think the MT's are worth selling (they were second hand anyway about 5 years ago), I think they've got another year and a bit left in them so would rather just use them on the FRONT ;-) and as the spare and keep the price down as the price of 4 new AT's all in one hit makes me wince at the thought.

[Snagger]

Have you considered remoulds? Not ideal, I know, because they wear faster, which makes them about as cost effective as the good brands whose patterns they emulate but whose compounds they don't. I just think you might be better off with a full set of them than one new pair of high quality tyres and and one pair of worn out MTs for the winter.

[Aragorn]

I'd far rather be driving around on worn but decent tyres, than ultra-carp remoulds. Its not just the wear rate your compromising on, its grip too.

See my post above (#5)

Also, I had a disco for a while on some remoulds which were a clone of BFG MT, and on a wet road they were absolutely lethal. So much so that the wife managed to take the side out of a Skoda after he slightly cut her up at about 15mph.

I guess it depends how worn the MT's are. Given he says theres at least a year left in them, i'm assuming they're not worn down to about 2mm of tread!

[Snagger]

I would never advocate using poor quality tyres. SOme remoulds are reputed to be pretty good - a lot of people seem happy with Insa Turbo remoulds, who copy BFG patterns. I have so far only used new premium brand tyres, but even they can have their problems. So far, though, I have always been very pleased with BFG ATs.

[ejparrott]

My Insa Turbo AT's seem to be doing ok so far, not had the weather to really see though, nor had the chance to play off road

[jbs]

After having remoulds-Mud pluggas from wales of all places in 750x16 flavour and amazon remoulds I would never have remoulds again-not only out of choice but necessity as they were terrible and a waste of my hard earned cash too, down right dangerous in the wet and when i went to get my 90 MOT'd the sidewalls on the mud pluggas had all perished and cracked to the point that the MOT guy could see the original carcass underneath as such I had to change them-all 5 were changed and I've vowed ever since to use decent tyres

John

[Snagger]

John, you can't say all remoulds are rubbish on the basis of one set - there are many different brands, compounds and treads. It's like saying all cars are rubbish because you tried a Micra...