Tire Question?

A little background. I bought my current car in July 2011. I have no clue what kind of tires were on it then, only that they didn't have a whole lot of tread left. I was told when I bought the car that I'd need to replace all four tires within a year or so.

So, in December 2011, I was told that I should replace the tires. I didn't have a whole lot of money at the time, so I elected to replace the two rear tires since they were worse - again, I don't know what the original tires were, but I replaced them with Coopers as they were having some sort of sale/deal. In July 2012, I had the front tires replaced since they were now pretty bad - they put Firestones on.

Now I'm hearing a lot that it's bad to have mismatched tires - that for ideal driving and handling, all four tires should be the same, and that may account for the vibrations I'm feeling at highway speeds. Is that true? If so, is it possible to just buy two new Firestones for the back? Or would I need to buy four brand-new tires and "start fresh" so to speak?

The last time I got an oil change (in October) the treads on the rears measured 9/32 and the treads on the fronts measured 11/32, if that matters.

I have four of the same tires on now, but my fronts and rears have been different before. As long as your car isn't AWD/4WD, it shouldn't matter. The S4 always gets four new tires. The GTI gets two if I'm feeling particularly lazy about spending money. Not that it matters, but I had Kumho Ecsta MXs on the back and Falken Ziex ZE-912s on the front. The only problem was that the rears were bald, so the back end would let go and you could drift, lol.

Okay. The car has FWD, so it shouldn't matter then? Is it still possible to balance tires when they don't match? I think they may be out of balance which could account for the vibrating as well.

The wheels/tires are balanced individually, not as a whole. So yes, you can still balance them without all four tires matching. You may have lost one of the wheel weights, which would cause the wheel to be unbalanced, and could thus cause the odd vibration. You may also want to check and make sure all four wheels are torqued down. The bolts on one of my wheels didn't get tightened and they started backing out. If the wheel is loose, the car will vibrate.

I saw "tire" and though you were either building an agility tire obstacle or training it. Helpful, huh?

Stop by a Les Schwab and ask them. Maybe they need re-balancing. Normally, if you're only replacing two tires, the best ones should go on front. You might be having some issues with the ball joints or suspension. That can cause vibrations too. If the tires aren't rotated about every 5000 miles, that can cause uneven wear and cause vibrations. But since yours are newer, they probably don't have that many miles on them yet. If you have 4WD, it's important to have all four tires equal in size and wear.

We don't have a Les Schwab here lol - at least I've never seen one! The best tires are the Firestones, and they're on the front. I'm not sure about the ball joints, but the suspension is fine. I know I've had the rear tires rotated (like the left and right switched) and the front tires rotated (left and right switched). I have FWD not 4WD.

Okay, sounds good. I will have them balance the tires and check that they're torqued down. If that solves the issue, I'll stop there. If not, I'll look into replacing the two Coopers with Firestones - or possibly just have all four replaced. Thank you!

Hahahahaha. I've totally done that before! Not with tires/agility per se, but someone once posted about their new job at a daycare - I automatically assumed dog daycare. Because why would you send your kid to daycare? :lol-sign:

Oh woops...I missed that before that your car is FWD. Oh, well....some tire place that is reputable that could check it out. I know les Schwab does all kinds of free stuff as far as checking things, fixing tires etc. Of course they charge plenty for new tires and doing work on the car. I just had to buy 4 new tires for my Rav4. They're 18" tires and they're Toyo brand. And I had them siped. They put me over $2000 in the hole. Arrrrgggg!