| NJGuy |
The story begins about 2 months ago, when my wife called me on her way to work. It was a dreaded flat tire. So I meet her to swap cars and to throw on the donut spare. Since my wife felt absolutely no comfort with me driving on the donut, she insisted (demanded) that I get a full size tire mounted on the Pilot before the end of the day.
The flat tire previously lived a good life until it it picked up a nail last fall. When the time came that my wife would start driving the Pilot much more often, I decided to have the tire repaired at Sears (mistake). I had no problems with Sears before, but after they did the repair it seems as if the tech manhandled the wheel. The wheel was scratched and the tire sidewall had a big bulge. The tire also had a slow leak afterward. I thought about complaining, but I usually find that if I do I'm never happy in the end. Plus, I didn't want to risk giving my wheel to them again. When my wife gave me the call that day, I instantly thought about replacement.
Given my budget, time constraints, service quality standards, and unique preferences, I chose the following route. I avoided Sears, instead going with a small private garage recommended by my co-workers. This place was a small hole-in-the-wall, and shady looking, but they had a good word-of-mouth repuation and unbeatable pricing. Plus, they would pretty much do anthying you wanted in terms of tire sizing, mis-matching, speed rating, etc. without much question. They were also very quick, which factored into my situation.
I purchased a pair of the HP.org favorite GY (lack of) Integrities. Here's why. Honda recommends replacing tires at minimum in pairs (though the tire shop didn't try to force the issue). Also, my other three tires still had plenty of life left, so my plan was to keep two on and keep one as a spare. I thought about getting the Kumho Solus KR21 tire. They were given good reviews on the Nissan Murano forums. But they were out of stock and I wanted to try to keep the tires matching as close as possible. For those of you who disagree with my selection of tires, I've never been scared by the GY's. For me, they only slip when expected (i.e. excessive speed through a tight negative camber turn in the wet, or severe winter weather, etc).
So here is the situation now. The two new tires were installed in the front with about 45K miles on the Pilot and the two old ones that originally came with the vehicle stayed on the rear. I'm approaching 50K on the Pilot, and I'm trying to figure out what I should do about tire rotation. Here are the scenarios I thought about:
1. Keep the new ones on front until they even out with the rear.
2. Rotate the new ones to the rear and keep them there until the old ones wear out in the front.
3. Adjust the rotation intervals so the new tires stay in the front longer (2 to 3 times longer) than the old ones.
4. Continue with 10K mile rotations.
Ideally, I'd like to get all four tires to match. I haven't measured the tread recently, but at the time of replacement the old tires had about 7/32 of depth. I believe the new ones come with 10/32.
Sorry if the post is long, but I'm interested in seeing the insightful responses many of you have to offer.
One other thought: Has anyone ever tried mounting both a full size spare AND the donut spare in the spare tire well? I know that common sense tells me this may be a crazy idea, but sometimes I like to think outside the box. Just curious. |
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| N_Jay |
They will never wear to match.
The three choices are;
1. get 2 more new tires and you have a new set.
2. Find one or two used integratiys close to where you are in wear.
3. Rotate as normal and change 2 more tires in about 20,000 miles. |
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| dbthompson |
The current recommendation for tires is to place the newer (better tread) tires on the rear. Putting them on the front can create instances of oversteer rather than understeer. Unless you are familiar with controlling oversteer, understeer is considered "safer".
But, if you get your Pilot drifting, I want video :) |
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| xGS |
quote:
Originally posted by dbthompson
The current recommendation for tires is to place the newer (better tread) tires on the rear. Putting them on the front can create instances of oversteer rather than understeer. Unless you are familiar with controlling oversteer, understeer is considered "safer".
With VSA, how much does that really matter? |
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| NJGuy |
I know I won't get them to wear to the point they're even unless I do some fun yet borderline illegal driving :) . I'm just trying to eventually get four tires as close to even as practically possible.
I'm leaning towards putting the old tires up front to try to wear them a bit more. I'll probably do it at the 50K mark. I guess I'll keep an eye on them and re-evaluate around 65-70K. If they're close to the end of their life, I'll get another 2 new tires. Eventually I'd like to find a tire shop in the area that performs tire shaving service in case I have a single tire fail again. But it seems almost impossible to find one.
I know that tire places always recommend putting the best tires in the rear, but that's one of those blanket recommendations that they give to kind of cover all drivers (and themselves). I feel slightly more comfortable with oversteer than with understeer, but it's not a huge deal to me either way.
I'm a conservative driver and any tire slip I get happens only on rare occasions. I did get the Pilot's rear end to step out for a fraction of a second during a recent rain. It was nothing spectacular and the VSA just mildly intervened and I input a bit of corrective steering. In the past when all four of my tires were identical, my Pilot would slide sideways slightly in those rare occasions and the VSA would not engage. So even with VSA, it does matter somewhat. The system will most likely compensate for uneven front/rear traction situations but shouldn't be relied on 100% as an end all safety measure.
I'd love to bring out my inner hooligan and try to get the Pilot in a drift on video; but it would take too much effort for me to find a spot, set up the camcorder & tripod, etc. Besides, Murhpy's law dictates that I'd probably end up with some boneheaded unnecessary damage/repair or law enforcement would just happen to be patrolling the area :) . |
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