Tyre Positioning and Handling

The importance of Tyre Positioning and Handling

When replacing car tyres, the ideal situation would be to replace all four tyres together. However as vehicles wear their front and rear tyres at different rates, this cannot always be done. In this case, new tyres should be fitted to the rear and move the part worn rear tyres to the front.

Why Fit New Tyres to the Rear?

Primarily to ensure that vehicle stability is maintained in extreme working conditions of hard or emergency breaking and cornering. This is especially critical on wet or slippery roads. This also provides additional protection against sudden deflation in the rear tyres, which is most likely to cause loss of vehicle control.

Most modern vehicles are front wheel drive, where the front tyres wear faster than the rear ones. The driver is therefore used to having less grip at the front as the tyres wear towards replacement. By fitting new tyres to the rear and repositioning the more worn tyres on the front axle, the condition the driver has become used to is retained after the tyre change.

Four Wheel Drive Vehicles
It is strongly recommended that on 4x4 vehicles identical sets of four (same make, pattern load index/speed symbol) are used. The vehicle manufacturer’s recommendations should also be followed.