Putting A/T tyres on P38, where should the better tyres go front or rear?

Hi all

I've purchased some 16" wheels for my P38 so I can stick some All Terrain tyres on for winter.

The wheels came with 2 road tyres and 2 Forceum ATZ tyres which are virtually brand new.

I plan to buy 2 new BFG AT K/O tyres to replace the road tyres.

The question is should the 2 new and (I'm assuming much) better BFG tyres go at the front or the rear?

Any advice gratefully received.

Front I'd say as you want plenty of grip at the steering end

1 on front. 1 on back, opposite sides.

That's what I originally thought Dr Evil but I wasn't sure about the back end sliding about when braking.

Perhaps I'm worrying too much, it's not like they're slicks or anything, they'd all be brand new tyres, it's just the BFG would be better.

Storm99 I suspect you are pulling my plonker

i bought 2 new GGs from my local indy, they recommended they go on the back.

discomalc said:

i bought 2 new GGs from my local indy, they recommended they go on the back.

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On small light cars where aquaplaning is a possibility, I'd totally agree with your tyre fitters, more tread on the lighter end of the car. However, on a big bus like the Rangie I'd rather have front-end grip when the going gets tough.

I'm old enough to remember driving the old Minis. When the going got tough you just sort of pointed the front wheels where you wanted to go and kept going and hoped that the rest of the car would eventually stop sliding about all over the place and follow on.

I'd stick the better ones on the front.

the current industry practice is to fit the best tyres to the rear of the vehicle .
the most worn tyres are more likely to lose grip when cornering hard, on the front this will manifest itself as under steer. you can corect this by turning the steering more. if the back loses grip in a corner it results in over steer, your reaction to this is to steer into the slide, usually over compensating and setting up a pendulum effect which can result in loss of control of the vehicle. most tyre depots have a safty advice poster you could read. hope this helps

tufty said:

the current industry practice is to fit the best tyres to the rear of the vehicle .

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Try telling that to the monkeys in a local well know tyre fitting chain who tried to convince me to rotate the tyres on my missis's little C3 putting the relatively unworn rear tyres on the front!

Do lots of people used mixed brands / models of tyres on their RRs? I always thought it was ill advised on a 4wd?

rasheed said:

Do lots of people used mixed brands / models of tyres on their RRs? I always thought it was ill advised on a 4wd?

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You're correct, in the perfect world where we can all afford to replace all five tyres with new, matching rubber.

Unfortunately it's not the one that I currently inhabit.

Well I could buy 2 new Forceum ATZ tyres to match the nearly new ones I've got but I've never heard of these tyres and they're quite cheap so I thought I'd rather have at least 2 decent ones than 4 potentially **** ones. (just to add I know nothing about the Forceums I'm just assuming)

dogsbody said:

You're correct, in the perfect world where we can all afford to replace all five tyres with new, matching rubber.

Unfortunately it's not the one that I currently inhabit.

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No I understand buying two at a time, I've done that always with my 2wd cars and even changed brands and tread pattern. But just looking at the freelander forum, half the problems they get is because different rotating diameter of front and rear screws up their VCUs. And different brands / treads that are rated the same size could in reality have a few mm variance. Its an acute problem for them but its not the first time I'd heard the argument so I was wondering if the logic transferred to other 4x4s.

Symptoms - Bell Engineering

it does it is better with 4 identical tyres on equall 4wd as rr ,although in practice people get away without ,just means viscous coupling will get more work and so have shorter life,freelanders tyre size is exacerbated because front wheels drive slightly faster than rear through design to give front wheel drive feel ,putting new tyres on front increases this and so works v/c harder ,increasing size compared to front on the rear helps to equalize different driven speed

jamesmartin said:

freelanders tyre size is exacerbated because front wheels drive slightly faster than rear through design to give front wheel drive feel.

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didn't know that.

jamesmartin said:

putting new tyres on front increases this and so works v/c harder ,increasing size compared to front on the rear helps to equalize different driven speed

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don't you mean decreasing? if to travel 1m the front tyre has one complete rotation, a bigger tyre on the rear may, for that same 1m travelled, have completes say 0.9 of a rotation, i.e. it will have turned less to travel the same distance in the same time. if you want the rears to rotate faster say you want 1.1 rotations in the same distance/time that the fronts do 1 rotation you would put smaller tyres on them i think.

on the other hand in P38s they suggest a 10psi difference in inflation pressure between front and rear, the rear being harder and therefore, in theory, bigger. meh, confused now. what do i know.

i mean slightly bigger rolling radius on rear ie new rear slightly worn front ,as front hub doing one complete turn rear hub doing less than one complete turn with difference made up by rear tyre travelling further in one turn, they thought freelander owners wouldnt be 4x4 owners but mondeo drivers hence the feel ,or so they told me in the 90s

Just to reiterate what others have said, industry guidance is to fit the best tyres to the rear of the vehicle as a loss of grip on the front is deemed preferable to a loss of grip at the rear as it is easier to control.

However, this is a very broad statement and makes no distinction between FWD, RWD and 4WD vehicles or driver experience.

Personally, I put the best tyres on the driven wheels (i.e. on the front of a FWD car and rear of a RWD car) as they get the most abuse. This helps prevent wheelspin and understeer in a FWD car and oversteer (unless requested! ) in a RWD car.

On a 4WD like the Rangie I would put the best tyres on the front as they are heavy old trucks and I want as much grip as possible on the front when braking!

definately better at front ,iwould have thought loss of grip was more preferable at rear if it had to be either plus steering and braking is done at front

I also always believed that the newer tyres should go on the front. However, just had three new tyres put on (one rear tyre got a nail in the sidewall and the two fronts were getting close to the limit) and the fitters moved the 4th tyre (which was around 4 months old) to the front and put two new tyres at the back.

I was quite surprised as I would have thought having uneven tyres at the front (even if the diff is only a few mm) would affect the handling ... or at least cause a bit of a drift when on a straight road ... haven't really noticed the difference though.

where would you want the most equall grip under extreme braking ,at the front i would have thought