Tyre woes

Been having interesting tyre-related (possibly) experiences lately, thought I’d share them here… my TF was stored for years before I bought her with only 13,000 miles on the clock. So the tyres (Continental), although 10 years old, had tread like new.However, a year and a bit ago my mechanic spotted dozing on the front tyres, so I had them replaced. I specified cheapo ones, as the rear end has been known to let go under pressure, and I thought this might even things up! They are “Farroad” – I have them on my Rover 75, and they’ve been absolutely fine.So far so good… however, at this year’s annual service (May) he noted that the rears were starting to doze too. Despite it passing the MOT without comment, at 11 years old I decided to replace them too. He recommended Toyo TR1, so these were duly fitted.This – or, just possibly, something else I suppose – has proven to be a disaster. Anything above 60 or so, the car has a tendency to wander when driving in a straight line, and feels generally unstable. It feels kind of like it’s steering from the rear as well as the front, and is quite disturbing.I’ve read every thread I can find on every forum, and have found various ideas, but the consensus seems to be that mixing tyres on this car is a bit of a lottery. Odd that the old Continentals on the rear worked fine with the cheapos on the front, but the Toyos apparently don’t… anybody had the same experience?PS have checked the obvious things like rotation direction, pressures etc.  

TFs, unlike Fs, seem particularly sensitive to tyres, and its recommended to fit all 4 the same. Toyos seem to be a bit 'marmite' In that some people swear by them while others swear at them!

I have Falkens on my F.

I know what you mean, I have just put Falkens on the rear of my 1.6i and have the same issue, it had nearly bald Falkens on the rear and was fine ( except in hard cornering) but with the new ones and a set of partly worn Goodyear Assurance on the front driving it is aweful. From everything I have read I need to bite the bullet and replace the front tyres as well. Im putting it on a hoist this week to see if I have any suspension bushes that need replacing first. It will be worth it to have the car back to its old self as it's not nice at all at the moment.

It's worth bearing in mind that tyres take a couple of hundred miles to bed in.

The Pirelli P7 on my Alfa were nothing special from the get go but about 150 miles later I was out for a 40 mile drive, mostly through "fast" country lanes when they bedded in and she just drove so much nicer.

Yeah... I know... but I reckon they've done something like 500 miles now, so probably out of hope on that front

Hi Hogweed. I had similar recent experience - I put new Toyo TR1 on the rear, existing Toyo T1R on the front. After much reading on the forums, decided I had to spoend the money to find out if it was worth it. It was a wrench to get rid of the T1R, there was nothing visibly wrong with them and basically 90% new tread depth. But it was worth it; as soon as I got the TR1 on all four corners that horrible feeling at 65mph+ just disappeared. Go for it.

Arrgghhhh!!!!! I'm 66, so have owned a lot of cars (and bikes), but have never encountered anything like this :rant:

But the evidence does seem clear that it's the tyre mix that's the problem, so I either drive around at 50 for a couple of years to get some value out of them, or throw away two tyres with, as you say, 90% tread still on them...

Hi Hogweed
I've had the car on a hoist and can't see anything loose or out of the ordinary so I've given up and ordered a set of Falkens for the front, as the evidence seems to point to that being the issue, hopefully it solves the problem. If not I'm not sure what to do next.
I'll know by next Saturday...

Have you had the 4 wheel alignment done recently? Worth checking...

David Aiketgate wrote:

Have you had the 4 wheel alignment done recently? Worth checking...

Yes, actually - a few months ago. It was fine both before and after that, right up till I had the Toyos put on the back :rant:

Well I have just got home from the tyre shop after having a set of Falkens fitted to the front to match the rear tyres, what a difference!
Finger and thumb on the wheel at 70mph, absolutely brilliant.

I have spent ages reading the forums with similar stories of bad handling fixed by matching tyres, and can say that it works.

Well, the evidence is quickly piling up, isn’t it… wonder what it is about these cars that makes them so sensitive to mixed tyres? As I say, I’m getting on a bit now, and have never encountered anything like it in nearly 50 years of driving, and a lot of different cars.

For comparison, from 2005-2010 I drove a BMW M3 – 320bhp, rear wheel drive, which ate tyres at such a rate that sometimes I resorted to cheapo ones, and the only difference I ever noticed was an increased tendency to lose the back end in the wet. The car was always rock solid even at speeds which… err… approached the legal speed limit on motorways (that’s 150, right? I find it hard to remember these things accurately…)

Anyway, it’ll have to wait for now, as we’re desperately trying to salvage a holiday in Corfu next month – be thankful you don’t live in N Ireland, where so much routinely available to everybody in the rest of the UK is “excluded”… in this case, one company has a monopoly on the requisite COVID tests for returning home, adding hundreds of Pounds to the holiday cost :rant:

At some stage after I get back, I’ll accept the hit and put matching Toyos on the front, and report back…