I am trying to evenly wear the tread on two sets of tires installed at different times so they have different tread depths. I’m hoping to do this by leaving the two on whichever end wear faster, then pick up regular rotation once they’re blanced. Which tires wear out faster, the front or rear ones?
On a front drive car the front tires wear at least twice as fast as the rear ones; they both steer and power the car.
On a rear drive car, driven conservatively, the front tires wear out slightly faster than the rear ones in urban driving. If you only drove cross country with a rear drive car, the wear would be about equal.
If your Eldo is FWD, the front tires will wear much more quickly than the rears.
If you have an older, RWD Eldorado the wear will be much more even.
Yup!
The Devil is in the details.
If the OP will tell us the model year of his/her Eldorado, he/she will get a much more specific answer to the question.
How you rotate the tires also depends on whether they are directional or not. Directional tires, Like Goodyear Assurance TripleTred, must be exchanged front to back only. You can’t change sides. Some car companies recommend front-to-back only anyway, but this is a safety issue and should be mentioned.
It is a 2000 Eldorado with about a 2/16" difference between the front and rear sets of tires.
I haven’t rotated a tire from side-to-side in over 20 years…and NEVER owned a directional tire.
So it’s a FWD.
Unfortuantely, with that amount of difference, the deeper tires ought to be on the rear.
The best advice would be to just leave them there until the fronts wear out.
I strongly suggest that you follow CapriRacer’s advice.
He is our resident tire expert, and his words carry a lot of weight with the other members of this forum.
I agree with Capriracer on this. All credible references recommend that on FWD vehicles the best tread be on the rear.
FWD cars typically have about a 60/40 weight distribution, meaning that the front tires have about 50% more weight on them than the rears. More weight equals more traction. Having the lesser tires on the rear exascerbates the problem and can cause such a difference that the rear end can spin out in sketchy road conditions.
One point I wanted to add is that if you’re prepping for winter and the tread on the fronts is getting low, you may want to consider replacing them entirely. The few thousand miles worth of rubber that you might be sacrificing is only woth a few bucks in reality, and having good rubber on all fours in the winter is the single best accident prevention expendature you can make. Don’t wait until they hit the wear bars. IMHO it’s folly to do so.