I'd probably put the good ones on the back more worn on the front

 

Just curious but why? A mechanic said the same thing but wouldn't better steering be more important than rear traction, especially when it comes to hydroplaning/slush conditions? The fronts are bad right now, about 25% tread and the rears are at 50%. When I buy the new tires next year, they'd go on the front and the existing ones would be flipped to the back.

I should have mentioned this before, but we live in a big snow belt and the roads are closed all the time. Also, it's an 03 R/T so rear traction isn't a problem and the truck is now our daily driver.

 

Guys,

Although we always strive to have pretty much equal tread depth at all four corners with 4x4/AWD, the issue here's vehicle handling. Per the Tire Rack web site, they recommended having the better tires on the rear because having the better tires on the front can bring on over-steer (the rear of the vehicle coming around) which is much harder for the typical driver to recover from.

Under-steer is when the front of the vehicle "plows" and is usually easily corrected by simply letting off the gas and steering into the skid. Over-steer on the other hand is a brute and even the best of drivers have found themselves in the trees/weeds when the rear end broke loose on them at high speeds.

This is also why it's recommended you have snow tires at all for corners if you run them. The old habit of just running a pair on the rear of a RWD vehicle is passe. At work, we run snow tires on all 4 corners so both ends of the vehicle will respond in a predictable manner when driven aggressively.

When I first looked into this theory, I too scratched my noggin. Once I thought about it though, I see the reasoning behind it and agree.

Don

 

Expect a knock down, drag out fight at Discount Tires if you want to add just two new tires to the rear!

Golson, if you're more comfortable with better tires up front for the snow in your conditions, then go for it.

Usually tires will wear evenly. How did you get into a 2 tire situation where, with proper swap rotation, etc, you should expect all four to go at once?

IndyDurango

 

Don,

Excellent info and thanks!

Indy,

In a nut shell, I'm cheap. I just drove 3 years and 112,000 miles on these tires without rotating them. I still have plenty of tread left, but decided that 2 tires before the winter were needed. At $275 a pop balanced and installed, I can wait another year to install the second pair, especially since the old ones have 50% tread life left.

I can spend $550 this year for only 2 or $1100 next year if I'd rotated them, plus taxes.

 

On an AWD vehicle, I prefer to see the tires pretty much even all around. I know the front/rear diff makes up for small differences in diameter and the D runs virtually all the time with power only to the rear, but still?

Also, if you put new tires only on the front or rear, it means once again you won't be rotating them. So, over a few more years, those 2 tires will wear much faster and, in the long run, you'll spend more money with no savings. I'd bite the bullet and put 4 new tires on. See if you can get $50/each for the pair that still has wear left on them? Just my opinion.

 

Bite the bullet and get 4 new tires. The overall diameter of the new ones vs the old ones, especially with different brands, could be as much as a 1/2" different putting a bit of stress on the AWD transfer case.
Steve

 

NEVER SKIMP ON SAFETY! :naughty: I'm with the rest of the folks, if it were mine, I'd put 4 new ones on it. you could drive across the border and get 4 installed even price matched for around $600-$700.
JMHO.

Jim

 

GM,

I agree that you can put your tires where you feel like it most likely with no ill effect. The answer I provided was in response to your question and to me the reasoning behind it does make sense. I also like the other comments about springing for 4 new shoes if that's feasible.

For some reason, I'd lost sight of the fact your rig is an R/T and thus AWD. One of the things I really like about the NV244 transfer case is, unlike the full time Jeep cases, it doesn't have the viscous coupler that gets out of sorts really quick when different wheels are constantly turning at different speeds. A friend of mine had bad experiences at WalMart twice because they allowed him to buy only 2 instead of 4 tires for his 90's era Grand Cherokee. The tires were just far enough off in size that the transfer case overheated and caught fire! According to him, he's the reason WalMart now refuses to sell less than a complete set of tires for a 4x4/AWD vehicle.

Don

 

FYI - Just this past Thursday I got a tire quote for a set of for BFG All Terrain T/KO R17s of just over $1300 (it was like $246/tire, $24.99 for the road hazard warranty, plus the four wheel alignment.) The set of four BFG's have risen +$360 in just two and half years so I feel your pain. I'm now beginning a search for a better tire deal and might consider something from the Cooper tire line.

-Steve