Switching front & rear wheels

[DaiB]

My MCS on 17" Dunlop runflats has done just over 7000 miles. The front tyres are now noticeably more worn than the back but still have plenty of tread. Is it a good idea at this stage to swap the front and rear wheels to even out the amount or tyre wear? If so, will the wheels need balancing again?

Thanks.

[ScottyBoy]

This is not the best of ideas and generally not recommended!

if you are aware of oversteer and understeer then you may know.....

understeer is more common on front wheel cars and is basically were the front wheels lose traction when turning and the car does not take the intended path of the steering (the car goes straight and the wheels are turning)

Oversteer can occur in an car which is attempting to turn, The car is said to oversteer when the rear wheels do not track behind the front wheels but instead slide out toward the outside of the turn. Oversteer can throw the car into a spin.

another thing that promotes oversteer is tyres that have less tread on the back and thefor the car looses friction with the road via the rear wheels first and causes the car to oversteer

oversteer is alot harder to control than oversteer by a novice and therefor this is not an advisable thing to do

Scott

[deggles]

Depends what you mean by 'plenty of tread'

Agree with Yellow_Mini_Scott that having more grip at the front than the rear can lead to oversteer (not good) but if the fronts are only slightly worn I think you should be OK. I rotated my tyres front-to-back at about 6000 miles without any problems (fronts still had a good 4-5mm tread).

Anything less than 3mm on a tyre and grip in the wet will seriously suffer so wouldn't recommend it.

Rebalancing shouldn't be needed (unless wear is uneven) - balancing is done with the wheel off the car anyway

[DaiB]

[quote=deggles;3015159]Depends what you mean by 'plenty of tread'

Yes, there is plenty of tread.

The reason I was asking in the first place was the fact that there are now newer Dunlop Runflats (as on the R56) and when I need to replace my front tyres, if I had problems getting the same as I have now, would it be OK to have different types front and rear? I had read somewhere that that wasn't always a good idea.

[greencode]

On another note to do with swapping front to back.

a) is there any way I can do this myself? I've runflats and so no spare tyre and I've just been quoted £55 from BMW to change them over!!!

b) Should you change them straight front to back or left-back to front-right and right-back to front-left

Thanks in advance

[alski]

if you intend to stick with runflats, i would not bother to rotate, if your looking to go non-runflat it will be worth doing so you can change all 4 at later date, do not mix types of tyres, ie run flats with non runflats, thats a no no

[Martin F]

Interestingly, on page 90 of the R56 handbook, MINI recommend fitting the front tyres on the rear and vice versa every 3000 to 4000 miles. This seems to go directly against the advice on this thread. Are 2nd generation runflats different?

[ScottyBoy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Martin F (original)

Interestingly, on page 90 of the R56 handbook, MINI recommend fitting the front tyres on the rear and vice versa every 3000 to 4000 miles. This seems to go directly against the advice on this thread. Are 2nd generation runflats different?

As mentioned previously! if you run your tyres until you've got around 2 - 3mm on the front and then 5mm on the rear and then swap them over front to back, this will be a bad idea as there will be still plenty of grip on the front and not much on the rear resulting the car tending to oversteer, which is harder to control for someone unexpecting it!

if you want to change wheels over every few thousand miles say every 3k then that should be fine as there will not be much difference in the tread depths and therefor oversteer will be much less!

hope this helps!

[deggles]

Quote: Originally Posted by greencode (original)

On another note to do with swapping front to back.

a) is there any way I can do this myself? I've runflats and so no spare tyre and I've just been quoted £55 from BMW to change them over!!!

b) Should you change them straight front to back or left-back to front-right and right-back to front-left

Thanks in advance

The Dunlop runflats are directional so you need to change directly front-to-back. You can actually do this with two jacks if you're feeling brave (i.e. jack up one side of the car and swap the two wheels), but much better to have the car up on a ramp or at least have some stands (and make sure you know where the proper jacking points are!).

[*Vikki*]

going to take mine in to Quickfit and get her fronts swapped to back etc after a years driving to even out tyre wear. They were bought from new so only a year old

[stripey]

get together with a friend and have a tyre rotating party -

take one wheel of their car, then you can use it on yours as you rotate.

i.e. take off your front right, put on the other cars wheel and lower jack
take off your rear right and replace with the wheel from front right
take off the other cars wheel and replace with the rear right.

Then you only ever have one wheel off at a time.

repeat on the left.

Does that make sense?

[ScottyBoy]

When i put my new wheels on its was alot simlpler, the jack in the boot jacked up 1 side at a time i.e 2wheels of the floor, just take both wheels of and swap then repeat on the otherside!

[fakesnake]

I would be very wary about tyre swopping. I once did this on a Pug 205 1.9 GTi, putting some good treads on the front thinking it would help traction/cornering etc. It did, but at the expense of the rear. The upshot was a very scary pirouette on a roundabout -nothing damaged car wise but the drivers seat acquired brown stains.
Now I admit the balance of the mini is streets ahead of the dear old Pug but the principle still remains & I doubt whether any electronic gadgetry would have got me out of that mess.