15 replies to this topic

[milliemini]

If you move the wheels from the rear of the car to the front do you need to have them rebalanced? because I was pretty sure they're balanced anyway but the guy at the garage wants me to pay an extra 7 quid to have the rebalanced before he'd move them! hummmmmmm

Basically am getting 2 new tyres to replace the worn ones on my front wheels but am having the wheels swapped so that the new tyres will be on the rear wheels instead of the front.

Just wondering if he's totally bull**itting me or if its actually correct????

[Big_Adam]

Unless you've done a fair few miles on them I wouldn't.

Wait....why would you not put the new tires on the front. All a mini's power goes there. Why put worn rear tires there?

If you've having tires replaced then balance, if your moving a wheel from point A - B then I wouldn't unless it had been a while since I last had it done. Or if my tires/wheels had been doing some very hard driving.

but thats just me.

[milliemini]

I always thought you were meant to rotate the tyres so that the newer ones were on the rear thus offering more grip and preventing the back end from kicking out on fast corners?? Unless I'm getting mixed up and its the other way round? Sure I read it in a car mag sometime.............

[Big_Adam]

I'm just thinking from my point of view as my front tires suck big dangle donkey balls.

ah well, wait till someone wiser and smarter than me comes along. They should be able to help you out.

[chrisholland1983]

recommended yes but you dont have to

[minivanman]

I always thought you were meant to rotate the tyres so that the newer ones were on the rear thus offering more grip and preventing the back end from kicking out on fast corners?? Unless I'm getting mixed up and its the other way round? Sure I read it in a car mag sometime.............

Probably a car mag for rear wheel drive cars. I keep the good ones on the front and when they wear down switch them to the back.

[minidaves]

a large tyre manufactuer did a lot of r&d on this and yep you should put best tyres on the rear and worns on the front inproves brakes especially when wet, also recomended tyre tread depth is 3-4mm

dave

[Big_Adam]

all the breaking power of a mini is concentrated at the front as with most cars to avoid fish tailing wildly under harsh braking. All the weight is at the front too. So all the force to push down on the now stopped wheels is there.

the mind boggles.......

*bugger off to ponder on the toilet*

[edjohnson]

i would imgine, if you slapped your grippiest tyres on the back, you may eliminate some fish tailing?

i just rotate mine, if needed so they wear evenly.

ed

[Guess-Works.com]

Yes, you are recommended to rotate the wheels, so the tyres with the best tread is on the rear. This is for safety reasons as describe above, associated with braking, especially on corners.

[biggav]

i was once told to swap wheels diagonally..... so put the rear right to front left etc.... i have bigger wheels and tyres on the rear now though so will not have to even consider it!!!!!

[Bass Man]

I always put the least worn tyres on the front, going back to you original point you shouldn't need a rebalance if the wheels were balanced off the car.

Although tyres shouldn't suffer any loss of grip at any point during their lifecycle. A decent tyre should grip just as well when new as it will when almost worn out, specialist/performance tyres will suffer from other problems over time because their compounds are designed for a short life.

[Guess-Works.com]

i was once told to swap wheels diagonally..... so put the rear right to front left etc.... i have bigger wheels and tyres on the rear now though so will not have to even consider it!!!!!

Be careful swapping diaganolly, you'll find quite a few tyres for the mini are now uni-directional so must be fitted on the corresponding side for the tyre rotation... ones which spring to mind are... A032R's, A048R's, 12" Falkens

[milliemini]

Thanks for all the info guys, managed to find a pair of Hankook tyres, getting them fitted on Wed, still havent made my mind up whether or not to put them on the rear or not, my main issue was whether the old wheels would need rebalancing or not, Bass Man surely all wheels are balanced off the car these days?

[samwell]

Wheels are balanced off the car and given that it takes about 2mins to balance a wheel, its deffo not worth £7 and if its been done once it won't need doing agen. That is unless some off the balancing masses have fallen off which shouldn't happen. You could check your wheels to see if any have obviously fallen off but aside from that i'd leave it.
Obviously the fronts will need balancing (going to rears) because they have new tyres, sorry if that seems obvious to you.

samwell