Jel

Its probably been covered a zillion times before but lets kill it completely...

A speck of paranoia kicks in when I see a couple of board members recently engaging in combat with road side council property. Tyres must play a part in this, among many other things, hence the question:

4-5 mm S02 on front, rears are lowish (also S02) and probably need replacing. I wanted Toyo T1R's if the predicted next ice age materialises but am mildly concerned that replacing the rears only with a different brand will produce a Robin Cousins effect. If it comes to it I's rather pay out for 4 tyres now than my policy excess and a hospital bill, but with the festive season looming would really rather not.

Educated arguments both way please...

euan

Pro's of mixing:

Potentially cheaper
Preferred grip characteristics
May not make that much difference anyway



Cons:

Different grip characteristics at each end of a lightweight powerful RWD




Personally I go with the idea that if you want the car to stop and go at the same rate at each end, you stick with the same compound and design.

KMB

I just replaced my SO2's at the back to give me a full set again....... I was amazed how much more positive the car felt with the new tyres instead of the 2-3m tread remaining.

As my fronts are in 'as-new' condition this seemed the best option, although taking it easy in the ice

Crusoe

adding increased grip at the back shouldn't be a problem in this weather, you might understeer a bit more. Driven hard the SO2s might get enough heat to grip harder than the rears though (depending on how grippy the toyos are) which might make the rear snappier than usual. As long as you have mor egrip on the rear with the new ones it should be fine.

Jel

KMB did you have a different brand on, or just low tread?

Nick Graves

The soggier sidewalls of the Toyos should give you more warning by floating more.

BTW, Karen reckons Proxes are crap in the ice on the Civic, actually worse than the OEM jp Dunlops!

Goodyear might be better for the winter season.

Jel

Nick, the rain channels on the Bridges have always worried me slightly and last year in the ice they were shite.

Not after seasonal sets, I need a decent all rounder but didnt want to shell out for the fronts until Spring.

Nick Graves

Yes, it's partly the tread pattern, but there is something about Japanese tread compounds that just don't agree with the wrong sort of ice that we get over here.

lovegroova

Best thing is to slow down a bit if it's wet/cold/icy, and make your rate of acceleration/change of direction slower. This will likely result in not coming unstuck.

My tyre experience islimited to Avon ZZR3s and S02s. Initally I had the Avons all round, then S02s Front/Avons Rear and now S02s all round.

The only occasions I've experienced unexpected oversteer (which is different to provoked oversteer) were when the rear tyres were getting towards the end of their life and accellerating hard in VTEC.

The new S02s I have on the rear at the moment make it quite difficult to get the back end to slide. i.e I have to provoke it by driving the car aggressively. With old tyres it was much, much easier.

The moral of the story is to change tyres before they are on the legal limit. It seems strange to me that people will willingly spend money on exhausts, snorkels and other stuff, yet skimp on the tyres which are the only thing keeping their car on the road.

Another way to look at it is that the cost of a new set of tyres is less than the excess on my insurance policy.

KMB

I was just replacing with the same SO2's with some new ones, phenomemal difference