ditto (except I have switched to Firestones on the rear) absolutely no change.

 

I blew my fronts on the WDC beltway in VA when I hit a bunch of construction concrete in the roadway at speed while merging on about 9pm. The jersey barriers gave me no choice. It was quite a jolt and a series of nice big bangs. Disgusted and late at night I drove home without looking. In the garage at home I took a breath and noted the problems. After replacing the two fronts and bent tie rods, I'm back on the road. The Firestones held up for about 25 miles under those conditions. I only replaced the fronts. I have over 30K on the tires on back. Oh, by the way...thanks construction crew. What a car! What a country!

 

I replaced my fronts, actually had cords showing on the inner edge, at 28,500 miles and still had 6/32" of tread left on the rears. I also was badly out of alignment, apparently, so get that checked as well if your fronts go much more quickly than the rears.

I do more high speed cornering and have never done a burnout. Right now, my rears are on track to last to around 43,000 miles.

As far as mixing goes, I would make that decision based on how and what conditions in which I would be driving the car. If in inclement weather, probably not. I also would consider driving tires with widely varying tread depth a shaky proposition in inclement weather even if the same type tire.

 

My two front GYs were in the $700 range at Discount Tire. They did a great job mounting/balancing them. I feel I'm good to go now for another 20 to 25,000.

 

On my 1999 convertible, I replaced the OEM rears with Michelin RFs. No problems at all...quieter than the GY OEMs. No handling differences. I intended to put Michelins on front but sold the car.

The 2008 coupe has 18K miles and the OEM fronts are down to 4/32nd and the rears are at 6/32. I'll replace the fronts soon with Michelin RFs and do the same when the rears are ready to go.

I think the rules of thumb are not to mix tires on each axle and not to mix RFs with non-RFs.

 

:beatdeadhorse This topic has been talked over so very much you would think it was a badging thread.

Wolfdogs and I agree on this topic, mine from a pratical stand point and his from his profession.

You can't go to a track and have different makes, tread patterns, etc... This is for safety reasons. If a car comes with any tire different than the rest, it is turned away for the day and the driver forfiets the money for the days event. This is with our club and club rules. When driving a car as this car was built to, balance comes into play. When having different rubber on any of your cars corners, the car is now out of balance. Same as if one tire is low on air.

I would never do it. EVER.

Replace them all if you are going to a different tire brand or tread pattern or replace the two that are bad with the same everything but with new tread.

You are driving the most expensive car that chevy makes. Why would you ever do the cheap thing?

 

This is what I did. I now have 48,000 miles on the Firestones and they are still looking very good. I know it is hard to believe but it is true.

 

... did the same thing and have had ZERO issues!

 

The rears last so much longer than the front I am starting to do burnouts to try and catch them up.

 

You are on the Corvette forum, you must always do whatever is the most expensive option....now get with the program

 

in ALL types of racing, road, circle, track they will/do use different tires, size's,treads, in circle/nascar they do it to control" STAGGER" you ever seen a 1100hp sprint car with the left rear about 2 feet wide and the right about a foot? or how there different diameters? how about F1 where they run "rain" fronts and "dry rears" where did you get this 'if the tread paterns don't match or if the front or rears are not the same" your disqualified? I guess the 18/19 inch gets you thrown out too{the 18's spin faster!}? how about when the build tire's with one co's side walls and anothers tread? MMMMM>>>> do you throw them out for having different compounds front/rear? as this would affect "balance MORE than anything! and to the rest of you thinker's the rear last's longer because 19 is bigger in diameter and spin slower, hence wear less, I run GY super cars{all season} on the front and kumho's on the rear and none of these are CHEAP tires. you just don't mix right/left on a street car!

 

Wow, yes there is stagger and tire size differentials at race tracks for sanctioned races, however, they are the same tire. I have been a fan of formula 1 for many years. Never have I seen a team put a car on the track with any of the four approved tires plus the rain tires and intermediate wets,other than a complete set. They will be the first to tell you that is a stupid idea. I never said that with our club you would be disqualified, you just simply wouldn't be allowed onto the track in the first place.

It'd be intersted to see if you would be at fault accident because of simply having different tires on your car.

 

Money has the same value, no matter which car you buy. Just because we buy expensive cars does not justify throwing away good money (and tires)

There is a difference between:

1. theory
2. 10/10 ths racing for a living

and

3. reality

Wolfdog was a tire engineer and as such, he is going to be a purist.

It's easy to preach, and it's also human nature to defend your actions when you waste money. Don't believe me? Just tell certain people here they waste money when they pay way too much for oil and other fluids when they buy Redline or Royal Purple lubricants- talk about a sh!tstorm You might even get a death threat or two



I drove my C5 FRC around a road course set up on TX World Speedway, ***** to the wall with Yoko's on the back and OEM's on the front. It was completely stable. Lou Gigliotti drove my car even faster around TX World Speedway with no issue.

To advise people to spend $1,200 on tires when they can spend $600 is silly. Hopefully they will ignore such advice. I am a degreed Engineer. I work with Engineers. And some of them have trouble with reality vs. perection / theory. Especially when they are spending someone else's money.

And the last part - which might be in poor taste, but is necessary to say because of the "cheap" implications: I paid cash for my new C6. I can easily afford 4 new tires vs. 2 new tires. And when the backs wear out, I'll only replace the backs.

 

My fronts also needs replacement at only 16k!!!

Its my DD and I dont track. Z51 08 A6. Mainly city driving.

What is the best option to go with. Dont want to waste too much money.

How is Somitomo or Hankook!!

Need advise

 

Same here on my 2007 F55. My fronts wore down faster so I replaced them with Firestone runflats about 1,000 miles ago. The rear original GYs still have good tread, so I left them on. So far so good - zero issues.

 

As long as the tire that has less handling capability is mounted on the front you will be OK. Lower handling tire in the front will increase understeer which is more easily compensated for by the driver and may not even be noticed. Lower handling tire in the rear and you will get more oversteer and the driver will notice the difference.

Problem is, it is hard to know which tire is the better handling tire until after you make your decision.

Bill

 

I've run different sets of tires on the front and back both on my C5 and C6, including at the track, without any problems. This has been mostly while switching from Goodyear Supercars to Firestone Wide Ovals. All were runflats.

I also have a friend who does a lot of track work and he wears out tires pretty quickly. He also has a garage full of different makes of tires that he uses and I've never heard him complain about mixing any tires.

On the other hand, I'd be careful about driving in rainy weather if either the front or rear set of tires has appreciably more tread than the other...especially if one set is below the wear bars.