why are tire shops reccommendiing / insisting that show tires be mounted on the back of front wheel drive cars???
To reduce the chances of a spin-out, with higher traction tires on the front, the rear can break loose.
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If you have ever had high speed blowouts you will find that a rear blowout is much more dangerous. When a front blows, you can control car direction with the steering wheel, when the back blows, it steers you. Same thing with bad weather traction. You will lose rear grip faster with front drive because there is little weight on the rear and the back end will head for the outside of the curve.
Hello Joe. Did you mean “Snow Tires?” If so, it is because winter tires help you turn and stop in winter conditions. Having them on just one end of the car can create unsafe situations. Please let us know if that is what you meant.
I think Joe was indicating that shops insist on putting new tires on the rear of a vehicle when you buy two, rather than four, tires. As previously stated by other posters, control of the rear of the vehicle is much more important to most drivers. Few drivers recover from loss of rear traction and typically spin out and crash. Loss of front traction is much easier to recover from, typically by lifting your foot off of the throttle.
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Simple solution: buy four winter tires, not two.
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Agreed, but Show and snow only differ in one letter. “New” is what I first thought too.
Good point. I went back and reread the original post and saw what you meant. In any event, I would never recommend using only a pair of snow tires on any car. Snow (or winter) tires should only be mounted in matched sets of four to make sure vehicle dynamics are not all out of whack.
Not for nothing, tires should always be replace in sets of four, not just snow tires. Vehicle dynamics are a funny thing and today’s highly automated vehicles with ABS, traction control, emergency braking, and more, depend on consistency in handling at all four corners of the car.